B    3    157 


TA2 

i 

PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE 
OF  RELIGION 

THE  PADDOCK  LECTURES 

1905-1906 


PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE 
OF  RELIGION 

• 

A  STUDY  OF  METHOD  IN 
COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

BY 

JAMES    HAUGHTON    WOODS 

INSTRUCTOR  IN  PHILOSOPHY  AT  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 

1906 


COPYRIGHT,  1906,  BY  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


D.  B.  UPDIKE,  THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS,  BOSTON 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

JOHN  COTTON  SMITH 

AND 

HARRIETTE  APPLETON  SMITH 

IN  GRATITUDE  AND 

REVERENT  AFFECTION 


■  58839 


PREFACE 

These  lectures  were  delivered  at  the  General  Theolo- 
gical Seminary  m  New  York  during  January  and  Feb- 
ruary of  this  year.  The  general  topic  assigned  for  the 
lectures  was  Comparative  Religion.  My  interest  in  this 
subject,  persistent  for  many  years,  was  first  aroused  by 
the  Paddock  Lecturer  for  1882,  a  man  who  stimulated  all 
my  ideals,  who  revealed  to  me  the  charm  of  the  scholar's 
life,  and  who  bound  my  life  to  his  in  loyal  admiration 
forever.  To  him  I  have  ventured  to  dedicate  this  work. 
The  general  method  which  I  have  followed  and  tried 
further  to  develop  I  owe  to  lectures  qf  Kaftan ;  to  work 
under  Harnack  in  several  successive  seminars;  and  last  of 
all  to  personal  suggestions  from  Windelband,  in  lectures 
and  on  delightful  strolls  up  the  valleys  of  the  Vosges. 
With  classes  at  the  university,  my  treatment  qf  the  sub- 
ject has  adapted  itself  to  the  men  with  whom,  from  year 
to  year,  I  have  studied  the  Science  qf  Religion.  The  reli- 
gious traditions  qf  these  men  are  divers;  but  Jews  and 
mystics,  Buddhists  and  Vedantists,  are  one  with  Chris- 
tians and  agnostics  in  their  desire  to  find  common 
ground.  The  search  for  points  qf  contact  between  dif- 
ferent religions  has  been  encouraged  in  every  way; 
points  of  contrast  have  often  seemed  more  superficial, 
and  obvious  enough. 


viii  PREFACE 

In  this  same  spirit  these  lectures  are  given  to  the 
search  for  positive  ground  common  to  many  religions. 
To  some  persons,  however,  this  undertaking  must  in- 
evitably seem  negative  in  its  aim,  since  the  unique  quali- 
ties of  religions  are  not  brought  into  the  centre  of  dis- 
cussion. In  an  informal  address,  which  the  students  at 
the  Seminary  were  good  enough  to  ask  me  to  give,  I 
explained  what  positive  results  may  be  expected  if  the 
ground  common  to  different  religions  be  sought  with 
the  candour  and  the  thoroughness  required.  One  reli- 
gion influences  another  best  when  it  has  enough  confi- 
dence in  itself  to  take  the  point  of  view  of  the  other  be- 
fore attempting  to  shift  that  point. 

An  illuminating  paper  on  Rinzai  by  Dr.  Motor  a 
has  been  extremely  useful  to  me.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  re- 
member the  generous  advice  and  patient  correction  of 
manuscript  by  Mr.  B.  Preston  Clark  and  by  my  bro- 
ther. And  I  wish  especially  to  thank  many  new  friends 
at  the  Seminary  for  the  hearty  welcome  to  their  midst 
and  for  much  sympathetic  criticism. 


Cambridge,  Massachusetts 
March  21,  1906 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION  3 

II.    LEVELS  OF  VALUE  23 

III.  PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  43 

IV.  ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  61 
V.    MYSTICAL  IDEALS  81 

VI.    LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  103 


I     )   .    •     I 


•  •    •  I  ■ 

'.    '       '  ' 


LECTURE  FIRST 


I 

NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF 
RELIGION 

A  Hundred  years  ago,  when  our  forefathers  were 
.  founding  theological  seminaries,  the  science  of 
religion,  far  from  needing  to  justify  its  existence, 
dominated  all  our  life,  our  morals,  our  art  and  even 
our  philosophy  of  nature.  Natural  theology,  as  our 
fathers  then  called  it,  was  the  predominant  creative 
activity;  its  foundation  was  fixed;  its  career  seemed 
indubitably  sure.  But  its  importance  proved  to  be 
transitory;  the  generation  which  followed  found  all 
theology  irksome  and  trusted  itself  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott  and  to  the  worship  of  beauty.  Such  aesthetic 
reforms  do  away  with  narrow  antagonisms,  and  fill 
men  with  eagerness  and  delight,  with  personal  enthu- 
siasms, and  with  larger  outlooks.  Any  age,  capable 
of  such  experiences,  capable  of  loyalty  to  ideals  of 
beauty,  must  regard  abstract  teachings  with  impa- 
tience, and  easily  falls  into  the  habit  of  counting 
austere  theology  a  useless  and  offensive  anachronism. 
Nevertheless  a  thoroughly  modern  science  of  religion 
has  its  own  right  to  existence,  has  its  own  ends,  less 


t         «    «     '     .  -     ■ 
t      I       •     • 

«  «      •    ',    <    I 


4  PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

ambitious  perhaps,  but  of  distinct  significance;  pre- 
cisely as  a  modern  ethics,  however  different  from  the 
old  English  hedonism,  has,  as  ever,  its  own  ends  to- 
day. These  ends,  however,  can  no  longer  be  attained 
by  the  procedure  of  the  old  systems.  As  the  problems 
of  life  have  changed  with  changing  conditions,  so 
likewise  the  methods.  To-day,  neither  in  art  nor  in 
ethics  nor  in  religion  can  we  start  with  abstractions; 
to-day  we  can  no  longer  by  dialectics  deduce  religion 
from  metaphysics.  Like  art  and  morals,  religion  must 
be  appreciated  as  a  personal  experience;  it  must  be 
approached  not  as  a  half-transcendental  existence, 
but  as  real  life,  as  a  human  interest,  as  an  actual  af- 
fair not  far  from  any  one  of  us.  It  must  be  viewed 
from  the  individual  case,  with  the  fewest  possible  as- 
sumptions, with  the  candour  which  pervades  the  lab- 
oratory,— so  only  can  there  be  any  hope  of  recov- 
ering the  ancient  trust  in  a  science  of  religion. 

This  situation  is  not  peculiar  to  religion :  it  is  true 
of  medicine ;  it  is  true  of  mathematics.  All  the  mental 
presuppositions  of  our  days  are  shifting,  we  are  be- 
ginning to  feel  the  extent  of  these  changes.  Many  of 
us  are  amazed  at  their  intricacy.  They  are  the  changes 
which  follow  our  successes;  and  they  are  changes  not 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION  5 

only  in  the  methods  of  the  sciences,  but  in  the  whole 
range  of  our  perceptive  powers.  We  are  stimulating 
our  sensitiveness  to  a  degree  beyond  our  capacity  for 
dealing  with  the  results  of  our  perceptions.  It  is  not 
easy  for  us  to  master  our  impressions:  we  crave  ex- 
citement, we  need  judgement.  Our  need  is  the  ability 
to  control  everything  we  get  in  terms  of  ordered 
values.  Mere  impressions  produce  a  tremendous  com- 
motion which  dies  away  and  leaves  little  result.  Im- 
pressions, if  new,  cause  rapture  for  a  time  and  then 
disappear.  Capacity  to  follow  our  own  plan  must  pre- 
vail, if  we  are  to  keep  impressions  at  all.  There  must 
be  a  scheme,  some  kind  of  order;  there  must  be  a 
sense  of  levels;  there  must  be  the  perception  of  an  end, 
even  if  the  spontaneity  of  life  seem  less.  So  the  dis- 
covery would  follow  that  order  is  not,  as  the  modern 
mind  easily  persuades  itself,  a  tyranny,  but  rather 
the  only  freedom. 

In  our  patriotic  speeches  we  pay  all  honour  to  ideals 
of  liberty :  we  ask,  with  almost  romantic  desire,  per- 
fect freedom  for  ourselves.  For  less  fortunate  peoples 
who  have  been  thrown  into  contact  with  us,  we  are 
equally  sure  that  nothing  is  so  wholesome  as  disci- 
pline. The  explanation  might  be  that  liberty  often 


6  PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

suggests  to  us  nothing  more  than  the  ability  to  act 
without  regard  to  consequences;  and  others,  we  think, 
need  discipline  not  to  help  them  to  act,  but  because 
they  prevent  us  from  doing  as  we  wish.  We  refuse 
others  liberty  because  we  have  not  disciplined  our- 
selves. Accordingly  liberty  and  discipline  bring  dis- 
order each  to  the  other  in  proportion  as  we  try  to 
divorce  them. 

In  art,  also,  we  are  not  satisfied  with  austere  typi- 
cal forms  such  as  could  express,  with  beautiful  pre- 
cision, the  common  ideals  of  a  whole  Greek  city. 
These  forms  expressed  a  sense  of  order,  embodied  a 
clear  purpose,  and  steadied  each  man's  life.  To  us 
they  seem  unreal,  remote  from  actual  business,  too  dis- 
passionate, too  impersonal.  We  choose,  instead,  vivid 
expressions  of  sudden  changes  of  feeling  or  of  some 
wayward  mood,  varying  with  our  personality,  varying 
even  with  the  emotional  oscillations  of  a  single  day. 
Is  it  as  easy  for  us  as  for  the  Athenian  to  enjoy  the 
overtones,  to  trace  the  values  which  interweave  the 
work  with  social  order  or  with  religious  standards? 
Do  we  not  oftener  require  intense  experiences  of  single 
souls,  less  limiting  conditions,  less  implications,  more 
of  vibrating  life,  more  actual  rhythms  of  passion? 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION  7 

We  have,  it  is  true,  learned  to  approach  our  art  with 
more  freedom,  with  more  candour,  with  more  delight; 
but  have  we  gained  the  ability  to  add  to  the  impres- 
sion the  power  to  reach  an  appreciation,  to  test  the 
value  of  the  capricious  taste,  to  add  to  the  pure  de- 
light the  more  permanent  satisfaction  of  an  orderly 
adjustment  to  life? 

Religious  ideals  are  likewise  in  process  of  modifica- 
tion. All  classes  of  persons,  poets,  critics,  journalists 
and  philosophers,  are  restlessly  searching  for  personal 
beliefs.  Unattached  to  any  religious  body,  they  are 
discussing  earnestly,  with  a  new  range  of  sensitive- 
ness, the  foundations  of  belief  and  hitherto  unper- 
ceived  shades  of  religious  meaning  in  life.  The  em- 
phasis is  personal ;  and  the  result  is  a  swelling  stream 
of  vivid  religious  impressions  and  expectations. 

Still  more  significant  is  the  change  in  the  whole  re- 
ligious mood  of  our  day  and  of  our  time.  It  is  not 
easy  to  describe  or  to  trace  this  mood,  unless  it  be 
said  that  it  has  broken  forth,  by  the  law  of  contrast, 
from  the  depths  of  the  human  soul.  But  it  is  a  fact 
that  we  have  become  averse  to  self-discipline  in  pre- 
paration for  a  world  to  come,  to  programmes  of  sal- 
vation, and  to  tables  of  virtues  and  vices.  Our  occu- 


8  PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

pation  is  to  master  this  world  now,  to  test  it  in 
actual  personal  experience,  and  by  our  own  vigour  and 
skill  to  sift  out  its  defects  and  diseases  and  add  to 
its  beauty  and  its  sanity. 

This  personal  mood  might  well  have  been  transitory 
and  insufficient.  But  it  has  proved  to  be  permanent 
and  well  ordered,  and  has  become  one  of  the  main 
ingredients  in  what  is  called  Modern  Science.  This 
habit  of  mind  has  overwhelmed  the  ancient  world. 
Its  method  has  been  to  search  for  as  many  fresh  sen- 
sations and  values  as  possible;  to  arrange  all  fresh 
insights  into  life  in  orderly  series;  to  test  the  whole 
and  the  parts  by  a  personal  verification  which  shall 
be  unfaltering  and  final.  In  such  wise,  this  mood  has 
mastered  Nature,  has  overcome  the  distrust  of  Nature, 
and  has  put  the  keys  of  authority  over  Nature  into 
the  hands  of  the  exultant  individual.  Modern  expres- 
sions of  belief,  with  few  exceptions,  are  striving  to 
adjust  themselves  to  this  new  authority.  New  and 
alien  personal  impressions  are  invading  the  ancient 
order.  Ideals  of  personal  behaviour,  of  hygiene,  of  tech- 
nical arts,  of  law  and  of  charity  are  already  ordered 
upon  the  new  plan.  Every  newspaper  recognizes  the 
new  authority,  and  each  school  is  kneading  the  minds 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION  9 

of  the  coming  generation  into  the  new  scientific 
moulds. 

The  new  sense  of  order,  which  is  Modern  Science, 
makes  certain  insistent  personal  demands  upon  mod- 
ern religion.  It  does  not  make  a  religion;  it  adjusts 
the  expressions  of  the  religious  life  to  the  new  order. 
Religion  can  well  exist  with  no  orderly  methods  from 
any  scientist ;  and  science  thrives  without  religion ;  but 
theology  presupposes  both. 

And  the  Science  of  Religion  of  to-day  is  the  attempt 
to  give  a  new  order,  and  as  these  lectures  will  try  to 
show,  a  new  sense  of  correspondence  between  the  in- 
tensely personal  experiences  of  religion  and  the  social 
or  mystical  experiences  of  religion.  It  assumes  the 
point  of  view  of  the  observer.  Like  any  other  science 
it  attempts  to  order  impressions  and  values.  It  has  no 
intention  of  creating  a  religion;  just  as  the  chemist  has 
no  intention  of  creating  an  element  or  the  historian  a 
charter.  Its  method  is  the  same  as  theirs.  It  differs 
from  other  sciences  in  that  its  material  is  not  the  same. 
This  material  is  the  beliefs  and  values  of  the  religious 
life  in  all  their  known  variations. 

Science  of  Religion,  then,  is  one  of  the  most  recent 
expressions  of  the  modern  type  of  mind.  And   the 


10         PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

reason  why  it  is  more  recent  and  more  backward  than 
other  sciences  seems  to  be  altogether  an  historical 
reason. 

The  Christian  Church  was  already  becoming  a  com- 
pact and  manageable  unit  when  it  first  encountered 
the  science  of  the  Greeks,  the  only  science  of  its  day. 
The  Church  and  the  sinking  civilization  of  the  Roman 
Empire  met  as  strangers.  Unfortunately,  instead  of 
discovering  that,  in  spite  of  differences  in  tradition, 
in  outlook,  in  resources  and  in  character,  they  were 
meant  to  live  together,  they  gradually  fell  into  a  kind 
of  pact,  by  which  they  agreed  to  remain  apart,  to 
make  concessions,  and  then  only  on  some  few  points 
to  become  more  like  each  other. 

Like  every  other  religion,  the  Christian  religion  was 
at  its  beginning  unfamiliar  with  science.  The  popu- 
lation in  which  it  expanded  was  uneducated.  The  re- 
ligion consisted  in  an  almost  ecstatic  enthusiasm  for 
a  moral  leader  and  for  a  divine  kingdom.  The  enthu- 
siasm for  the  Divine  King  and  for  the  ideal  society 
fused  into  one.  The  result  was  a  new  motive.  This 
motive  was  a  love  which  swept  far  beyond  the  limits 
of  self,  and  resulted  in  a  conquest  of  the  soul;  the 
charm   of  this   conquest   was  subtle  enough  to   be 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION         11 

its  own  reward.  There  was  no  need  of  any  other  au- 
thority than   this  motive   and  its   own   operations. 
Still  less  were  scientific  evidences  required.  For  the  one 
flaming  desire  to  reach  souls  was  sufficient  in  itself. 
The  generation  which  followed  was  of  weaker  moral 
fibre.  Men  asked  others  to  choose  for  them  courses  of 
action  when  their  own  consciences  alone  should  have 
given  the  decision.  Singly  these  men  could  not  face  the 
pagan  world ;  they  must  feel  that  they  faced  the  world 
as  members  of  an  organization.  The  regulations  which 
they  received  became  the  faith  of  the  later  Church; 
all  else  was  profane.  The  contrast  of  the  organized 
system  of  Christian  beliefs  and  the  outer  pagan  stan- 
dards became  permanent.  God  spoke  in  the  Church; 
the  thoughts  of  the  world  lacked  the  divine  wisdom. 
But  gradually  the  Pagans  brought  their  ideals  with 
them  into  the  Church.  They  brought  with  them  their 
science.  For  the  most  part  this  science  was  a  tradition 
going  back  to  Aristotle.  He  had  taken  into  the  physi- 
cal world  a  principle  of  explanation  which  Socrates 
had  used  in  the  moral  world.  Socrates  had  been  sure 
that  things  have  their  purpose  in  the  moral  world; 
Aristotle  had  used  this  moral  purpose  in  the  physical 
world  as  a  principle  of  Nature.  Man  is  a  moral  force; 


12        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

Nature  is  a  moral  force;  body  is  explicable  as  the 
moral  purpose  of  soul.  The  snail's  soul  creates  his 
body;  his  soul  loves  convolutions  and  so  builds  a  body. 
The  soul  of  the  fish  loves  water  and  constructs  an  in- 
strument to  satisfy  a  moral  need.  Nature,  likewise,  is 
an  instrument  of  the  moral  soul  of  Nature.  But  at 
that  time  this  main  scientific  ideal  of  the  pagan  world 
was  scarcely  able  even  to  transmit  itself.  The  Stoics 
made  some  advances  in  ethics;  but  neither  ethics  nor 
science  was  an  observation  of  experience ;  it  was  tradi- 
tional; it  was  not  more  than  a  readjustment  of  the 
old  principles  to  actual  life. 

This  kind  of  science,  dependent  upon  a  moral  force 
as  its  efficient  principle,  was  the  only  science  which 
the  Christian  Church  knew.  The  Church  felt  no  incli- 
nation and  possessed  no  ability  to  produce  for  itself  an 
independent  science.  It  accepted  the  science,  such  as 
it  was,  of  the  schools.  And  after  the  first  feeling  of 
repulsion  the  tension  soon  ceased.  It  appeared  that 
both  Pagan  and  Christian  were  seeking  a  life  differing 
from  their  own,  the  life  of  God,  as  both  called  it;  each 
knew  by  experience  that  human  life  can  find  the  con- 
nection with  this  larger  life.  The  truth  which  both 
recognized  was  in  the  religious  and  ethical  world.  Both 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION         13 

were  sure  of  the  final  triumph  of  the  spirit  over  the 
unmitigated  life  of  the  senses.  Nature  was  for  both  a 
screen.  They  were  to  renounce  all  temporary  desires, 
all  care  for  trivial  things ;  and  they  were  to  refashion 
themselves  in  their  ideals.  The  sole  use  of  knowledge 
was  to  enable  each  to  distinguish  what  was  true  in 
this  experience  from  what  was  plausible.  Scientific 
truth  was  the  discovery  of  ideals  in  life  and  was  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  what  truth  might  appear  at 
first  sight. 

With  this  common  end  in  view  they  came  closer  into 
touch  than  they  were  aware.  But  the  Church  clung  to 
its  first  statement:  the  Church  contains  the  absolute 
truth,  the  Pagan's  religion  is  a  feat  of  human  reason 
unaided  by  divine  knowledge.  The  pagan  word  "re- 
ligion" and  the  pagan  conception  "religion,"  (in  the 
sense  that  religion  is  every  kind  of  practice  which  has 
as  its  end  the  pleasing  or  the  appeasing  of  the  gods,) 
were  unknown  to  the  Church.  Thus  the  Church  ig- 
nored the  religious  element  in  the  Pagan's  world,  or, 
rather,  counted  that  religion  a  philosophy  and  in  no 
sense  a  demand  of  a  people  upon  its  God  for  life. 

As  a  result  of  this  situation,  a  concept  of  science 
extraordinarily  important  in  the  history  of  Western 


14        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

thought  came  into  acceptance ;  science  contains  moral 
elements,  but  does  not  proceed  from  a  revelation.  Nat- 
ural knowledge  of  God  has  nothing  to  do  with  re- 
ligion in  the  fullest  sense.  This  science  is  a  produc- 
tion of  man.  If  this  science  be  called  natural  religion, 
it  is  after  all  imperfect  religion.  The  nature  of  this 
compromise  became  clear  as  soon  as  the  Western 
Church  found  itself  confronting  an  entirely  new  and 
contemporary  science.  The  aim  of  science  was  alto- 
gether changed.  No  longer  was  it  an  ethics  with  a 
cosmic  background.  It  rested  on  two  new  kinds  of  per- 
sonal experience :  historical  criticism  and  experimental 
natural  science.  At  the  same  time  mystics  like  Fran- 
cis of  Assisi  or  like  Dante,  although  within  the  Church, 
made  it  appear  that  intense  personal  exaltation  raised 
them  above  the  world  into  the  immediate  experience 
of  God,  even  when  they  were  not  in  accord  with  the 
authorities.  Thus  the  new  individualism  of  science  and 
of  the  mystics  gradually  upset  the  balance  between 
natural  and  revealed  religion. 

The  old  science  had  lasted  unquestioned  for  a  thou- 
sand years.  It  lost  first  its  ethical  character;  it  in- 
terpreted nature  irrespective  of  human  desire,  or  of 
good  and  evil;  it  adopted  experimental  methods;  it 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION        15 

returned  to  atomic  theories.  Finally  a  new  metaphy- 
sics appeared;  no  longer  the  product  of  myth  and 
ethics  and  logic,  but  more  and  more  a  fresh  unifica- 
tion of  personal  experience.  But  unlike  the  old  Greek 
metaphysics,  which  had  been  the  basis  of  natural  re- 
ligion throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  this  new  meta- 
physics did  not  rest  upon  any  religious  assumptions 
worth  mentioning.  Thus,  only  in  quite  modern  times 
the  way  has  been  opened  for  a  scientific  treatment  of 
religion.  This  Science  of  Religion  is  no  longer  natural 
religion  with  the  old  assumptions ;  it  is  now  an  histori- 
cal and  psychological  classification  of  religious  facts. 
It  is  the  investigation  and  explanation  of  the  reli- 
gious life;  it  investigates  and  explains  religious  life 
as  one  investigates  and  explains  morals,  social  forms 
or  politics. 

From  this  point  of  view  Christianity  is  one  of  the 
religions;  it  is  understood  as  one  among  many,  or  even 
as  a  part  of  a  whole.  The  distinction  between  natural 
and  supernatural,  between  revelation  and  reason,  be- 
comes of  minor  importance.  More  exactly,  there  would 
be  in  every  religion  both  these  elements:  a  natural 
element,  in  the  old  sense,  the  actual  condition  of  the 
human  animal  unmodified  by  social  needs  or  by  ideal 


16        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

hopes;  and,  quite  as  truly,  there  would  be  in  every 
religion  a  supernatural  element,  the  activity  which 
raises  the  human  soul  above  the  unabashed  life  of  na- 
ture into  a  world  of  spiritual  values,  into  a  world 
which  strives  against  stupidity  and  inertia  and  vul- 
garity. 

The  problems  of  this  science  would  then  be  to  col- 
lect, to  order,  and  to  estimate  the  facts:  to  discover 
what  has  been  the  direction  of  development,  to  ask 
what  is  the  goal  of  this  development,  and  to  inquire 
whether  the  ideal  goal  exists  in  the  development  it- 
self. Such  a  science  is  becoming,  more  and  more,  the 
basis  for  future  systems  of  theology.  If  the  pro- 
gramme could  be  carried  out,  the  difficulties  arising 
from  practical  treatment  of  a  theoretical  problem 
would  diminish.  Men  engaged  in  the  actual  living  of 
the  religious  ideals  would  afflict  themselves  less  with 
the  old  enigmas:  how  to  state  miracles  in  terms  of 
science ;  how  Christianity  maintains  preeminence  over 
all  other  religious  forces;  how  a  modern  religion, 
which  spurns  the  earthy  and  carnal,  can  yet  domi- 
nate a  modern  civilization  and  a  modern  morality. 
These  problems  would  not  be  solved,  but  they  would 
become  less  oppressive.   At  the  same  time   science 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION        17 

would  be  less  trammelled  by  personal  feelings;  the- 
ology would  gain  in  candour  and  in  authority ;  and  re- 
ligion would  begin  to  feel  the  freedom  of  asserting  its 
absolute  character. 

In  some  such  way  as  this  it  would  become  much 
easier  to  be  sure  that  religion  is  the  experience  of  the 
presence  of  a  larger  life,  necessary  and  universal,  in- 
clusive of  all  collective  and  personal  forms  of  life. 
The  basis  of  this  experience  would  be  the  souPs  de- 
sire for  the  permanency  of  its  moments  of  complete 
insight;  the  experience  itself  would  be  the  sense  of  a 
single  inclusive  purpose  in  human  life;  and  the  result 
would  be  the  freedom  to  interpret  its  own  individual 
share  in  that  purpose.  This  sense  of  personal  freedom, 
this  certainty  of  the  permanent  values  in  one's  own 
self,  is  a  product  of  no  science  or  theology;  and  no 
science  or  theology  can  destroy  it.  It  is  a  fact  of  the 
personal  life;  one  has  it  or  has  it  not.  But  science  can 
search  for  its  simplest  forms,  can  illustrate  its  con- 
nections with  other  expressions  of  life,  can  trace  its 
intricate  changes  in  history  and  estimate  the  worth 
of  its  different  forms.  Science  can  clear  our  minds  of 
conflicting  prejudices;  it  can  convince  us  of  the  per- 
sistence of  values  in  consciousness  more  inclusive  than 


18        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

our  own.  It  creates  no  fact ;  but  it  can  form  each  man's 
impressions  into  a  world;  it  can  order  beliefs  into  a 
total  system  of  belief.  An  action  adjusted  to  the  be- 
lief in  an  inclusive  system  of  beliefs  is  a  religious  act. 
Similarly  our  bodies  act  with  reference  to  an  external 
world,  a  projected  system  of  sensations.  Our  world, 
whatever  it  may  be,  would  be,  without  such  inclusive 
systems,  as  if  it  did  not  exist.  Our  world  is  maintained, 
in  each  of  us,  only  by  our  belief  in  an  inclusive  con- 
sciousness; it  is  maintained  only  by  an  unconquered 
effort  to  discover  and  to  order  purposes,  beliefs  and 
values. 

This  constant  readjustment  of  personal  impressions 
to  a  single  standard  is  our  religious  experience.  Our 
religion  is  the  final  purpose  with  regard  to  which  we 
measure  and  use  all  of  our  impressions.  This  purpose 
is  never  passive.  It  is  an  act  of  will.  The  way  to 
strengthen  the  sense  of  ordered  values  and  beliefs  in 
this  will  is  to  direct  it  in  the  right  way,  by  interest- 
ing ourselves  in  the  things  which  really  matter.  With 
this  deep  sense  of  the  importance  of  discovering  what 
things  count,  we  begin,  unconsciously  it  may  be,  to 
set  up  permanent  systems  of  beliefs  and  values  for 
ourselves,  for  human  lives,  for  more  inclusive  lives. 


NEW  AND  OLD  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION         19 

These  scales,  expressed  in  terms  of  consciousness,  are 
our  religions.  The  Science  of  Religion  is  an  artificial 
device  to  collect  these  experiences,  and  to  aid  in  the 
process. 


LECTURE  SECOND 


II 

LEVELS  OF  VALUE 

THE  concentration  of  attention  in  science  is  not 
the  same  as  the  concentration  of  attention  in 
religion.  In  science  the  observer  is  interested  in  the 
impressions  and  in  their  relations  to  each  other,  and 
is  disinterested  in  himself.  In  religion  there  is  inter- 
est in  the  person  himself;  the  interest  in  the  impres- 
sions has  value  only  so  far  as  it  aids  the  assertion  of 
the  self  in  contrast  to  the  world,  only  so  far  as  it  aids 
a  man  to  count  himself  as  a  whole.  This  desire  to  con- 
trast himself  to  his  world  is  no  fancy  of  his  idle  mo- 
ments. It  is  as  strong  in  his  science  and  in  his  morality 
as  in  his  religion.  In  his  science  he  constructs  a  sys- 
tem of  objective  knowledge;  he  projects  an  image  of 
an  external  world.  In  his  morals  he  strives  for  a  world 
wherein  his  ideal  of  good  becomes  real  in  action.  But 
in  religion  he  seeks  satisfaction  for  himself  as  a  whole 
from  the  universe  as  a  whole.  Often  his  science  assures 
him  that  he  is  nothing  more  than  a  tiny  group  of  os- 
cillating energies;  often  his  ideal  good  leaves  him  in 
doubt  whether  the  good  itself  is  more  than  a  fascinat- 
ing illusion.  From  these  scientific  and  moral  points 

23 


24        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

of  view  he  cannot  escape  the  question,  more  or  less 
constant,  whether  any  effort  of  intellect  or  of  self- 
sacrifice  can  preserve  the  individual  life  when  con- 
fronted by  Nature;  whether  his  whole  personality  is 
not  the  product  of  forces  accidentally  combining  with- 
out any  end  in  view;  whether  all  the  learning  and  all 
the  devotion  of  men  will  not,  after  all,  prove  to  be 
futile  labour. 

It  is  religion  which  has  helped  to  answer  these 
questions  in  such  wise  that  the  feeling  of  self  as  a 
whole  is  not  destroyed  or  narrowed.  Even  in  the 
least  civilized  minds,  and  in  its  least  sufficient  forms, 
it  is  religion  which  gives  men  most  freely  the  feeling 
of  the  value  of  personalities.  This  is  true  when  the 
self  is  contrasted  with  the  chaos  of  living  impressions 
which  is  the  world  to  the  mind  of  the  savage;  but  it 
is  true  quite  as  well  when  the  self  is  contrasted  to  the 
prim  unearthly  abstraction  which  is  the  world  to  the 
intellect  of  the  physical  scientist.  This  accomplish- 
ment gives  religion  its  value;  and  this  value  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  feeling  of  personality  as  a  whole. 
The  concept  of  the  god  represents,  in  a  vivid  symbol, 
the  assurance  in  the  heart  of  his  worshipper  that  per- 
sonality shall  not  be  completely  ignored  in  conflict 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  25 

with  the  world.  The  god  encourages  men,  even  when 
they  are  scarcely  yet  the  physical  match  of  the  car- 
nivorous animals,  to  impose  upon  nature  the  values 
of  good  and  of  evil;  and  he  gradually  helps  to  set 
men  free  to  criticise  Nature,  or  even  to  create  worlds 
for  themselves.  Thus  faith  in  a  god  is  a  declaration 
of  superiority  to  the  blind  forces  which  dominate 
man's  physical  life. 

The  idea  of  the  god,  then,  is  the  expression  of  the 
living  relation  which  can  bind  together  a  man's  world 
and  his  ideal  of  himself  as  a  complete  person.  The 
idea  of  the  god,  in  the  form  of  symbolic  imitations, 
or  of  rituals  of  purification,  or  of  prayers,  points  out 
the  way  to  the  worshipper's  ideal  personality.  The  god 
assures  to  the  worshipper  the  right  to  feel  a  contrast 
to  the  world,  and  the  right  to  feel  a  correspondence 
to  something  more  inclusive  and  higher  than  man's 
present  momentary  self.  And  this  sense  of  the  values 
of  personality  is  not  a  mere  postulate  or  a  meaning- 
less mystery;  it  is  an  intense  form  of  the  love  of  life. 
The  mystery  lies  quite  as  much  in  the  nature  of  life 
itself  as  in  any  of  the  expressions  of  life ;  and  the  pos- 
tulate has  its  basis  wherever  life  manifests  activity. 

Each  religion  searches  for  higher  correspondences  to 


26        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

life ;  this  search  may  be  for  bodily  satisfactions,  or  for 
fulfilment  of  social  desires,  or  for  values  of  beauty 
and  of  conduct, — so  far  as  any  of  these  aims  make  a 
man  surer  of  self,  and  develop  his  individuality,  his 
criticism  of  life,  or  his  power  of  judgement.  Impres- 
sions are  ranked  with  reference  to  the  sense  of  expan- 
sion of  self  or  of  contraction  of  self.  Each  religion 
has  its  own  scale  of  values,  and  differs  in  its  sense  of 
the  value  of  personality  and  in  its  search  for  higher 
correspondences.  Accordingly,  each  religion  differs  in 
its  idea  of  its  god,  since  the  god  is  the  expression  of 
its  own  standard  of  values  for  the  whole  of  life.  The 
gods  of  each  religion  are  therefore  symbols  of  an  inner 
sense  of  successful  contact  between  the  whole  person- 
ality and  the  world. 

So  long  as  judgements  of  value  are  merely  special 
wishes  of  the  individual  life  when  beset  by  one  or  an- 
other obstruction  of  Nature,  at  one  or  another  time 
or  place,  they  are  accidental  judgements.  They  do  not 
concern  life  as  a  whole;  they  are  not  religious  judge- 
ments. 

When,  however,  judgements  are  necessary,  in  that 
they  stand  in  inseparable  connection  with  the  person's 
conviction  of  the  continuity  of  his  own  individual  ex- 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  27 

istence,  they  are  religious  judgements.  All  judgements 
which  are  thus  grounded  immediately  in  the  inner 
experience  of  the  person  are  religious.  These  experi- 
ences, and  the  judgements  of  which  these  experiences 
consist,  are  a  part  of  his  personal  existence,  which  he 
cannot  give  up  without  destroying  himself.  Conse- 
quently beliefs  of  this  kind  are  the  expression  of  a 
practical  necessity  which  under  no  circumstances  the 
person  can  evade. 

Another  distinction  between  judgements  of  value 
would  be  the  distinction  between  individual  judge- 
ments, collective  judgements,  and  universal  j  udgements. 
A  judgement  which  concerns  one  person  only,  which 
could  not  concern  another  person,  cannot  be  religious. 
As  soon  as  a  man  begins  in  the  least  to  reflect  upon 
the  value  of  his  own  actions,  he  forms  such  judgements 
upon  himself  in  countless  numbers.  Thousands  upon 
thousands  of  these  judgements  of  value  upon  self  make 
a  man  what  he  is  to-day.  Extending  over  years  they 
determine  in  one  direction  the  general  course  of  his 
life,  determine  his  present  choices,  determine  what  he 
will  be  in  years  to  come  and  what  he  will  succeed  in 
shaking  off  and  dropping  out  of  his  character.  Upon 
the  basis  of  these  judgements  which  he  is  constantly 


28        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

making,  an  intricate  structure  of  purposes  and  values 
is  building  itself  up  within  him.  And  in  general,  how- 
ever much  some  of  our  choices  seem  childish,  however 
much  our  inheritance  and  resources  may  differ,  how- 
ever much  our  outlook  on  life  may  be  unequal,  this 
structure  within  us  of  our  own  individual  judgements 
invests  each  with  a  peculiar  interest  and  with  a  certain 
human  dignity. 

Some  kind  of  personal  disposition,  then,  is  formed 
in  each  man  out  of  the  mass  of  momentary  judgements ; 
and  furthermore  many  individuals  may  coincide  in 
their  judgements.  My  values  may  be  your  values;  my 
beliefs  may  be  your  beliefs.  The  interests  of  my  family, 
of  my  friends,  of  my  profession  or  of  my  nation  are 
extensive  interests  common  to  many  persons.  Collec- 
tive judgements  are  passed  by  all  the  members  of  such 
social  units;  these  judgements  express  the  collective 
value  of  an  object  for  persons  bound  together  by  a  com- 
mon purpose.  In  proportion  as  the  number  of  com- 
mon interests  increases  and  the  feeling  of  community 
of  purpose  becomes  more  intense,  these  collective 
judgements  acquire  a  different  kind  of  validity.  When 
the  collective  judgements  reach  the  point  that  the  in- 
dividual would  choose  not  to  exist  rather  than  violate 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  29 

them,  they  become  religious  judgements.  All  the  mul- 
titudes of  momentary  choices  become  adjusted  to  a 
commanding  social  ideal.  The  single  man  despairs  of 
himself,  in  case  he  be  hindered  from  aiming  at  the 
social  ideal,  in  case  there  is  not  any  of  his  life  that  he 
can  give  to  family,  to  blood-brotherhood  or  to  city. 
His  god  expresses  for  him  the  value,  in  its  might  and 
majesty,  of  the  ancestral  life.  His  own  life  is  a  part 
only  of  one  common  life;  it  is  the  life  of  the  others; 
and  it  is  their  life  which  is  his  life.  His  values  are 
theirs;  his  best  is  what  the  common  life  chooses  for 
him.  That  choice  is,  for  him,  his  own  value  to  him- 
self. His  life  is  inseparable  from  their  judgement. 
Thus  only  his  personality,  as  a  whole,  faces  the  world. 
This  common  feeling  of  interest  may  cover  human- 
ity as  a  whole;  the  collective  judgement  becomes  uni- 
versal. If  all  men  feel  an  interest  in  controlling  Na- 
ture, the  discovery  of  the  stone-axe  or  of  the  Parthe- 
non is  of  universal  value.  But  it  is  evident  that  when 
I  make  such  a  judgement  as  universal  and  assert  it  as 
of  value  to  all,  I  do  not  mean  that  by  collecting  evi- 
dence I  have  discovered  in  actual  existence  a  uni- 
versal common  interest  and  a  corresponding  judge- 
ment; rather,  I  refer  to  a  condition  which  ought  to 


30        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

prevail  among  men.  So  long  as  I  refer  to  an  actual 
condition,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  invention  of  the 
stone-axe  or  of  the  most  recent  machine  is  univer- 
sally valued.  But  my  appeal  is  not  to  one  or  another 
temporary  or  local  consciousness,  but  to  a  conscious- 
ness which,  as  I  maintain  in  this  case,  should  pre- 
vail: this  I  call  a  normative  consciousness. 

Unconditionally  we  can  assert  a  universal  value 
when  we  know  the  extent  of  the  class  to  which  the 
particular  objects  should  be  of  value:  rifles  to  the  sol- 
dier; beauty  to  the  artist.  Honour,  friendship,  health, 
insight,  are  now  of  absolute  value  in  actual  experience 
to  all  men  whatsoever.  Apparently,  then,  these  judge- 
ments are  universally  valid,  even  though  there  be  no 
actual  relation  between  the  object  and  my  will,  or 
rather,  even  though  there  be  no  other  relation  than 
that  required  for  the  repetition  in  ourselves  of  the 
judgement  of  the  others. 

Universal  judgements,  especially  if  they  be  reli- 
gious, lose  in  vividness  of  personal  feeling  what  they 
gain  in  extent  of  validity.  Too  easily  they  become  reg- 
ulative principles  to  which  we  assent  in  an  imper- 
sonal tone  of  mind.  They  appear  remote  from  our- 
selves and   poor  in  quality   when  contrasted    with 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  31 

sudden  rushes  of  emotion  which  sweep  us  along  for 
brief  spaces  with  conviction  and  irresistible  power. 

We  can  agree  that  universal  judgements  are  valid, 
and  yet  they  appear  rather  pallid  abstractions.  We 
feel  gaps  when  we  must  interpolate  our  judgements 
into  the  judgements  of  men  distant  in  time  and  space 
and  action.  One  living  exception  seems  to  neutralize 
all  their  validity.  A  homeless  ascetic,  striving  day  and 
night  to  deaden  the  clamour  of  appetite,  could  not 
easily  assert  the  universal  value  of  health.  Health 
is  to  him  the  enemy  of  life.  The  breaking-down  of 
health  is  his  release  from  pain.  Some  of  us,  even 
here,  may  not  count  bodily  vigour  as  an  object  of 
interest ;  some  of  us  feel  intensely  the  charm  of  the 
ascetic  ideal.  And  yet  as  we  interpret  such  a  case 
the  upshot  would  be,  on  the  whole,  a  reassertion  of 
the  universal  value  of  health.  After  the  temporary 
doubt  we  wax  bolder ;  we  become  even  more  certain 
that  all  men  ought  to  desire  health  and  set  their  wills 
upon  it  and  find  in  it  the  keenest  joy.  Our  final 
judgement  is  not  much  affected  by  a  slight  flaw  in 
our  inductions;  it  may  even  be  contrary  to  them; 
for  the  judgement  rests,  first  of  all,  upon  the  per- 
sonal will,  and  then  upon  our  imaginative  subtlety 


32        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

in  interpreting  other  wills.  In  more  technical  lan- 
guage we  may  assert  our  judgement  as  normative ; 
we  may  assert  that  contrary  judgements  are  abnormal ; 
we  appeal  to  an  absolute  normative  consciousness, 
freed  from  our  temporary  and  personal  defects,  to 
approve  and  to  establish  our  assertion.  Judgements 
such  as  these,  without  which  the  highest  personali- 
ties cannot  exist,  are  characteristic  of  the  mystics 
and  of  the  world-religions. 

A  religion  consists  in  a  personal  feeling  of  the  cor- 
respondence of  one's  self  as  a  whole  with  some  col- 
lective system  of  values ;  and,  in  more  developed 
religions,  with  a  normative  system  of  values  in  addi- 
tion to  the  collective  system  of  values.  A  man  who 
is  religious  in  the  fullest  sense  cannot  live,  unless 
he  live  upon  the  three  levels  at  the  same  time,  and 
unless  he  feel  at  one  time  the  correspondences  of  the 
three  levels  within  himself. 

Many  religions  fail  to  reach  the  sense  of  correspon- 
dence with  any  normative  system  of  values.  Many 
religions  also  submerge  vivid  personal  feelings  under 
collective  judgements  of  the  clan,  or  of  the  caste, 
or  of  the  city.  The  sense  of  one  level  may  be  de- 
fective,  the  sense  of  the  other  may  be  extremely 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  33 

faint.  In  the  lower  ancestral  religions  the  individ- 
ual's personal  sense  languishes  ;  personal  enthusiasms 
droop  under  the  burden  of  usages.  Glimmers  of 
genius  are  carefully  suppressed.  Such  religions  may 
seem  romantic  to  us  to-day ;  but  they  seem  roman- 
tic because  mysterious,  and  because  their  troubles 
are  remote  from  us  and  from  our  present  troubles. 
Dreary  enough  they  were  to  the  few  rare  souls 
among  them  who  asked  for  more  life,  for  more  of 
a  sense  of  correspondence  to  something  higher  than 
such  systems  could  generate.  In  the  excessive  col- 
lective systems  of  values  of  the  Confucian  or  of  the 
Roman  ancestral  religion,  what  we  miss  is  a  back- 
ground of  personal  beliefs  firm  enough  to  break  up 
some  of  the  conventional  mental  habits  of  the  clan. 
We  miss  the  passions,  focal  enough  and  personal 
enough  to  discover  and  to  create  fresh  values,  hith- 
erto unassimilated  by  the  communal  life. 

The  ability  to  discover  higher  correspondences 
within  himself  enables  a  man  to  have  value  for  others. 
The  lack  of  this  ability  is  what  we  miss  most  in  a 
friend.  What  we  ask  is  not  so  much  that  he  con- 
form to  usages  of  society,  or  that  he  sharpen  his 
thinking    powers,    but   rather    that   he    express    to 


34        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

us  his  best  wishes  and  choices,  his  keenest  enthusi- 
asms and  aversions.  Then  we  can  better  estimate 
him  as  a  man.  Then  we  can  find  permanent  common 
ground  with  the  man  himself.  A  change  in  this  sys- 
tem of  his  feelings  and  impulses  and  likes  is  a  read- 
justment of  his  personality.  We  wish  this  system  to 
be  firm,  decisive  and  limitless  in  a  man.  In  many  of 
the  ancestral  religions,  this  system  of  personal  feel- 
ings comes  under  the  subjection  of  a  power  too 
strong  for  itself;  for  the  individual  is  not  strong 
enough  to  conceive  the  collective  judgements  of  his 
clan  to  be  a  whole  of  which  he  is  an  active  part ;  he 
conceives  the  collective  judgements  to  be  a  rival  will 
mightier  always  than  himself.  To  him  his  life  is 
inconceivable  if  independent  of  his  clan ;  since  his  clan 
requires  that  he  recognize  the  duty  of  entire  con- 
formity. No  individual  can  progress  unless  he  repeat 
the  will  of  the  clan ;  and  repudiation  of  the  estab- 
lished order  severs  the  life  of  the  man  from  his  people. 
But  if  he  is  sure  enough  of  himself  to  appeal  to  a 
will  more  inclusive  than  the  common  will  of  any  clan, 
he  approaches  the  higher  religions.  He  need  not  ab- 
jure and  defy  his  clan.  He  asserts  that  his  judgement 
is  right.  He  means  not  only  that  this  or  that  collection 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  35 

of  persons  actually  so  judges,  but  also  that  all  ought  so 
to  judge.  His  demand  would  be  brutal,  if  all  he  means 
is  that  others  must  adjust  themselves  to  him.  But 
his  demand  obtains  its  authority  as  soon  as  it  appears 
that  his  new  insight  is  guided  by  an  ideal  which 
any  man  can  recognize  within  himself  as  authorita- 
tive over  each  of  us.  And  so,  in  general,  as  well  as  in 
each  one  of  us,  we  can  discover  deeper  meanings  which 
underlie  any  collective  judgements.  In  every  human 
life  there  slumbers  a  limitless  will,  an  individuality, 
which  each  man  is  to  develop  not  for  the  sake  of  him- 
self, nor  even  for  others,  but  which  is  to  be  recog- 
nized as  having  absolute  value  in  itself.  On  our  highest 
level  our  judgements  are  right,  without  regard  to  any 
one  momentary  value,  without  regard  to  the  weight 
of  collective  judgements,  without  regard  to  pleasure  or 
pain,  without  regard  to  single  facts  or  feelings  which 
express  particular  conditions  or  desires.  A  judgement 
of  this  kind  is  an  expression  of  the  activity  of  the 
person  as  a  whole.  This  whole  is  felt  to  be  in  corre- 
spondence with  one  infinite  system  of  beliefs  which 
expresses  one  whole  inclusive  system  of  normative 
values,  a  will  which  unifies  the  purposes  of  human  life. 
In  any  one  action  we  never  succeed  in  expressing  our 


36         PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

whole  personality.  No  systems  of  verbal  language  or  of 
symbolic  actions  are  felt  to  be  expressions  of  our  com- 
plete self.  The  face  of  nature  may  be  set  against  us ;  the 
face  of  society  may  know  us  not;  we  may  feel  helpless 
and  despondent.  But  whatever  we  should  count  as  the 
full  expression  of  personal  life,  the  life  we  desire,  the 
life  of  self  as  one  whole,  that  we  should  confess  as 
our  religion.  Our  religion  is  the  larger  life  we  feel 
within  us,  a  part  of  ourselves,  struggling  with  our- 
selves, the  perfection  of  ourselves,  to  which  we  may 
always  turn  with  passionate  interest.  This  larger  self, 
seemingly  within  us  yet  ever  just  beyond  our  reach, 
this  it  is  that  men  have  tried  to  represent  in  their 
conceptions  of  their  gods.  In  our  own  experience  we 
have  the  assurance  of  this  life,  at  which  we  aim,  and 
to  which  we  incessantly  return.  This  life  cannot  be 
altogether  different  from  our  own  life,  for  it  is  that 
by  which  we  measure  our  lives,  that  from  which  we 
cannot  sever  our  lives,  unless  we  ourselves  cease  to 
be.  To  this  life  we  appeal  whenever  we  assert  a  judge- 
ment, believing  with  all  the  intensity  of  our  best 
selves  that  our  judgement  must  be  so;  we  appeal  then 
from  our  transitory  self,  from  social  standards  to  an 
inclusive  infinite  will,  never  identical  with  any  one  of 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  37 

its  moments,  to  a  will  which  we  trust  will  prevail,  a 
will  upon  which  we  stake  the  best  in  our  lives.  In 
proportion  as  our  normative  judgements  extend  them- 
selves within  us,  just  so  far  they  express  in  our  own 
selves  what  this  will  must  be.  But  since  within 
us  this  will  is  confused  with  individual  and  collective 
values,  the  sense  of  what  it  means  is  broken  and  easily 
lost.  The  Absolute  Will  in  us  is  the  standard  at  which 
we  aim  and  in  which  we  hope  for  peace.  It  is  beyond  us 
because  we  will  it  more  often  than  we  know  we  will 
it.  It  is  beyond  us  because  we  are  really  willing  it, 
just  when  we  are  only  aware  of  willing  what  is  after 
all  some  temporary  and  provisional  choice.  In  pro- 
portion, then,  as  we  decide  to  take  ourselves  more 
seriously,  we  find  that  our  life  extends  beyond  any 
momentary  boundary  and  is  continuous  with  a  region 
of  life  which  we  can  never  at  any  one  time  call  our 
own.  How  far  beyond  us  this  region  extends,  we  can- 
not say.  But  each  single  judgement  that  has  ever  ac- 
tuated us,  and  all  the  values  in  the  wills  of  others,  in 
past  and  future,  to  which  we  have  reacted,  contribute 
to  this  wider  region  of  our  self.  Each  transitory  act 
of  will  merges  in  this  wider  self,  and  passes  completely 
beyond  our  control.  Of  this  wider  self  our  present 


38        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

condition  is  a  constantly  fluctuating  expression.  Va- 
rious judgements  have  fallen  into  ordered  series;  other 
judgements  have  neutralized  themselves  in  reciprocal 
conflicts.  Each  new  value  finds  a  correspondent  in 
some  inclusive  series  and  each  modifies  the  wider  self. 
Each  value  exercises  authority,  minimal  though  it 
may  be,  and  each  uses  its  influence,  imperceptible 
though  this  influence  may  appear  to  the  actual  self. 
This  infinite  self  subsists  by  these  unnumbered  mil- 
lions of  self-subordinating  values.  The  more  stable 
groups,  the  collective  groups,  and  above  all  the  nor- 
mative groups,  gradually  crystallize  into  reliable  hu- 
man wills  and  fixed  institutions.  Each  part  is  in  re- 
lation to  the  whole.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that  the 
whole  inclusive  will  requires  each  part  of  itself, — each 
passion  for  order,  and  ungrudging  friendship,  and 
each  appreciation  of  beauty,  and  loyal  deed.  Of 
these  the  Absolute  Self  consists.  I  stumble  into  an 
adventure,  and  I  find  that  my  wider  self  has  brought 
me  there.  My  whole  self  is  facing  the  situation  and 
interpreting  the  moment  and  weighing  the  mood.  In 
such  wise  each  distinguishable  single  value  and  the 
resultant  choice  of  my  total  self  must  affect  each 
other.  Each  value  is  found  to  be  an  expression  of  the 


LEVELS  OF  VALUE  39 

wider  self.  And  the  Absolute  Will  is  what  it  is  in 
part,  because  of  that  particular  choice. 

Different  natures  and  different  wills  develop  in  dif- 
ferent ways.  For  some  it  seems  more  natural  always 
to  regard  life  as  a  whole;  for  others  to  take  it  as  a 
collection  of  groups.  Some  develop  harmoniously, 
others  in  detail  and  in  variable  and  more  one-sided 
ways.  It  is  easier  for  some  to  find  one  ruling  purpose 
and  to  focus  their  wills  upon  that;  for  others  it  is 
easier  to  adjust  themselves  frequently  to  examples  of 
life  or  to  different  social  ideals.  In  all  cases,  what  we 
want  is  the  inclusive  system  of  purposes  and  the  sense 
of  correspondence  to  it.  That  is  our  religion.  In  this 
search  we  find  our  life  and  our  encouragement;  we 
find  larger  views  of  things  opened  to  us ;  we  discover 
that  our  life  lies  on  higher  levels  than  those  which  we 
have  been  too  exclusively  cultivating. 

In  the  three  following  lectures  we  will  consider  (iii) 
a  case  of  primitive  beliefs  as  an  illustration  of  individ- 
ual judgements  not  yet  in  the  strict  sense  religious; 
(iv)  certain  ancestral  systems  constructed  by  religious 
judgements  of  the  collective  class;  (v)  various  mystical 
ideals  which  strive  to  exclude  all  judgements  that  are 
not  normative. 


LECTURE  THIRD 


Ill 

PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS 

A  NY  expression  of  religion  is  an  act  of  practical 
JL  JL  life.  Its  design  is  to  make  remoter  values  vivid 
to  the  present  will,  to  adjust  that  will  to  the  more 
difficult  judgements  upon  life.  Science  of  Religion 
displays  to  us  the  situations  which  call  forth  reli- 
gious acts,  the  problems  which  require  solution,  the 
correspondences  between  different  levels  of  life.  It 
shows  us  first  the  easier  religious  solutions  in  the  form 
of  unquestioning  following  of  usage,  in  the  form  of 
a  kind  of  herd-instinct.  Next,  it  shows  us  the  ven- 
eration paid  to  men  of  force  as  objects  of  worship, 
as  powers  mysterious  beyond  all  calculation,  beyond 
all  approach.  Science  of  Religion  shows  us  how  much 
the  clan-feeling  can  sustain  the  more  remote  aspira- 
tions and  beliefs.  It  shows  us  also  how  the  develop- 
ment of  a  strong  tribal  life  may  form  the  basis  for 
the  subtler  feelings  and  shades  of  choice  which  pre- 
pare for  the  mystical  religions.  And  it  shows  us  finally 
that  as  the  individual  becomes  more  of  an  ordered 
whole,  social  control  and  social  suggestion  fail  to  as- 
sure him  of  the  ultimate  ends  of  belief.  Your  tribes- 

43 


44        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

man  may  continue  the  ceremonies:  he  may  observe 
food  restrictions,  he  may  keep  feasts,  he  may  marry, 
he  may  give  divine  names  to  his  children,  he  may  ini- 
tiate his  youth,  he  may  pay  his  respects  to  the  mighty 
spirits  with  whom  he  has  to  do;  but  his  beliefs  have 
become  more  complex,  and  his  requirements  of  action 
more  varied,  than  the  religion  of  his  tribe  can  satisfy. 
The  ancient  order  of  beliefs  is  questioned;  the  older 
purposes  are  attained  in  new  ways;  the  problems  of 
life  become  more  pressing  and  the  emotions  more 
sensitive.  The  ancient  usages,  the  first  attempts  of  the 
early  clan,  achieved  much,  accomplished  what  no- 
thing else  at  the  time  could  have  accomplished  so 
well.  But  now  they  do  not  seem  so  decisive :  purposes 
are  now  more  closely  adjusted  to  new  systems  of  be- 
liefs; desires  are  fulfilled  in  other  systems  of  volun- 
tary control.  There  are  new  expressions  of  actual  val- 
ues. And  all  these  are  again  personal  acts  of  choice. 

Science  of  Religion  tries  to  discover  these  shifting 
systems  of  beliefs  and  scales  of  value.  If  the  scientific 
descriptions  of  these  religions  are  to  interest  us  at  all, 
if  we  say  we  understand  the  personal  attitudes,  we 
mean  that  we  have  put  ourselves  to  some  degree  in 
the  situation  of  the  clansman.  Our  will  is  then  his 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  45 

will;  his  belief  might  cause  us  to  act  as  he  acts.  In 
that   sense   we    understand    his   system   of   beliefs. 
We  fit  his,  as  a  part,  into  our  own  scale  of  be- 
liefs. We  fit  his  beliefs  into  ours  in  terms  of  action 
and  of  personal  choice,  not  in  terms  of  fact  or  in  ver- 
bal values.  The  experience  is  determined  by  the  will, 
and  the  outer  facts  group  themselves  about  it.  The 
will  being  the  object  of  search,  the  only  way  to  find 
it  is  to  let  it  affect  us.  However  slightly,  the  poise  of 
our  will  must  change.  We  understand  the  strange 
creature  whose  will  is  laid  bare  before  us  in  so  far  as 
we  ourselves  change.  To  that  extent  he  becomes  a 
part  of  ourselves.  Thus  there  can  be  no  science  unless 
there  be  practice;  if  divorced,  neither  exists.  My  char- 
acter influences   my  science;   my  science  makes  me 
other  than  I  have  been  before.  The  relation  is  reci- 
procal. We  may  not  heed  the  little  shift  in  the  bal- 
ance of  will ;  we  may  not  know  why  our  delight  is  a 
shade  more  keen,  or  our  repulsion  a  shade  less  dull; 
but  nevertheless  our  total  system  of  beliefs  has  lost 
and  regained  a  central  point  in  order  to  include  one 
more  act  of  will.  The  higher  the  religion,  the  more  these 
alterations  of  the  whole  self  are  expressions  of  a  char- 
acter forcible  and  well  ordered  on  all  its  levels,  able 


46        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

to  predict  and  to  verify  its  oscillations  of  centre  with 
increasing  success. 

What,  then,  is  the  material  to  which  the  Science  of 
Religion  attempts  to  give  this  form?  It  is,  first  of  all, 
a  mass  of  ethnological  work:  descriptions  of  ideas, 
especially  conceptions  of  gods;  descriptions  of  rites; 
descriptions  of  customs  under  religious  control;  de- 
scriptions of  arts  expressing  moods  which  accompany 
these  ideas  or  actions.  We  are  no  longer  content  with 
sketches  of  religion  from  the  tourist  or  the  adven- 
turer whose  point  of  contact  is  momentary,  who  severs 
religion  from  ordinary  life.  There  are  now  trained 
ethnologists,  men  with  orderly  minds,  who  quietly 
devote  themselves  to  a  people,  as  a  skilful  tutor 
lavishes  life  upon  a  boy.  The  assumption  of  the  eth- 
nologist is  that  the  minds  of  uncultured  men  are  not 
loose  heaps  of  feelings  and  perceptions,  but  are  as  co- 
herent systems  as  his  own  mind.  All  that  is  necessary 
is  to  find  his  permanent  personal  interests  and  the 
stimulations  which  make  him  feel  most  alive  to  him- 
self; to  discover  what  permanent  ambition  and  goal  of 
desire  returns  most  frequently  to  his  imagination; 
then  we  have  found  the  man  himself. 

The  brilliant  work  in  Ceylon  of  two  German  natu- 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  47 

ralists,  the  brothers  Sarrassin,  gives  us  a  description 
of  one  of  the  simplest  attempts  to  express  in  an  action 
a  permanent  object  of  desire.  The  Rock-Veddahs  are 
one  of  the  five  or  six  most  primitive  peoples  alive  to- 
day. They  have  no  agriculture;  food  is  eaten  without 
the  use  of  fire.  Their  greatest  skill  is  in  the  use  of  a 
ten-foot  bow.  The  man  lies  on  his  back  and  holds  the 
bow  with  his  feet.  He  sinks  his  shafts  up  to  the 
feather  in  the  water-buffalo  and  sends  them  clean 
through  the  wild  pig.  All  his  interests,  his  satisfac- 
tions and  triumphs  are  associated  with  this  weapon. 
In  the  crises  of  his  life,  when  there  is  sickness  or  child- 
birth or  preparation  for  the  hunt,  there  is  worship  of 
the  arrow.  In  the  forest  at  night  the  men  dance  in  a 
circle  around  the  arrow  stuck  tip  down  in  the  ground. 
There  are  fires  to  add  to  the  festive  character  of  the 
scene.  There  are  rhythmic  cries,  expressions  of  thanks 
or  of  hope.  This  continues  until  all  are  worked  up  to 
almost  convulsive  excitement.  But  there  is  no  clear 
concept  of  an  arrow-spirit,  or  of  a  god,  or  of  any  soul. 
The  dance  expresses  what  they  want ;  but  the  ideal  is 
not  so  clear  that  it  can  be  expressed  in  a  concept  or 
in  a  word  or  in  a  figure. 
The  emotions  expressed  in  the  dance  and  in  the  rude 


48        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

cadences  are  pre-religious  and  pre-animistic  rather 
than  religious.  The  motions  and  sounds  are  the  first 
crude  efforts  to  express  what  might  develop  into  a 
religion.  They  are  dramatic  symbols  of  the  qualities 
which  the  Veddah  values  as  the  highest  he  can  possi- 
bly conceive.  They  express  himself  when  he  seems 
most  genuinely  alive;  they  make  him  feel  triumphant 
over  himself  and  his  hindrances. 

But  it  does  not  appear  that  the  series  of  beliefs 
in  himself  is  sufficiently  continuous  to  find  expression 
in  the  conception  of  a  spirit  as  a  constantly  active 
personal  force,  always  alert,  always  master  of  the  de- 
cisive stroke.  The  reason  seems  clear:  the  long  foot- 
bow  is  too  large  a  part  of  the  whole  effort.  The  wea- 
pon is  too  much  for  the  man.  The  game  is  the  victim 
of  the  arrow,  not  of  the  bowman.  Furthermore,  the 
game  is  shot  while  the  man  is  at  rest.  No  game  is 
tracked  through  the  maze  of  bamboos.  The  hunter 
does  not  trample  through  the  jungle  with  all  his 
senses  intent  upon  the  game.  There  is  no  pursuit; 
there  is  little  variety  of  movement.  What  the  forest 
sends  he  will  shoot.  Hence  the  plot  is  too  brief.  The 
emotions  are  intense,  but  spasmodic  and  unbalanced. 
The  values  within  are  not  enough  ordered  to  become 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  49 

projected  outward  as  a  compact  and  self-existent 
whole.  The  feelings  are  immersed  in  a  half-conscious 
neutral  flux.  The  beliefs  do  not  form  systems, 
nor  can  they  crystallize  into  the  conception  of  a  god, 
corresponding  to  a  man's  life,  but  able  to  meet  trium- 
phantly the  situations  which  baffle  the  man.  Hence 
the  Veddah  cannot  express  his  total  self;  and  because 
he  cannot  express  himself,  his  fellow-tribesmen  cannot 
understand  him  or  offer  to  sustain  him  when  he  tries 
to  contrast  himself  with  his  world. 

All  this  is  ethnological.  If  we  choose  simple  cases  like 
this  with  few  balanced  masses  of  feelings,  the  mere 
imagination  of  the  scene  arouses  sympathetic  im- 
pulses in  ourselves.  The  trunks  of  the  great  trees,  the 
heavy  swaying  leaves,  the  flecks  of  sunlight  through 
the  branches,  the  birds  and  drowsy  beetles,  the  insipid 
fragrances,  all  these  sensations  are  keen  in  us.  We 
can  feel  the  suspense,  the  release  of  the  shaft,  the  fall 
of  the  quarry,  and  the  elation  of  the  midnight  festi- 
val. We  feel  traces  of  the  impulses  in  ourselves.  All 
that  this  imaginary  experience  of  ours  lacks  in  com- 
parison with  the  actual  experience  of  the  bowman  is 
the  conviction  of  the  reality  of  what  we  see  and  hear 
in  imagination.  The  mass  of  our  sensations  may  be 


50        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

the  same  in  quality,  but  they  lack  the  setting  of  his. 
Our  world  does  not  fit  to  his  world.  The  scene  causes 
us  to  act  appropriately,  but  it  commits  us  to  no  course 
of  action.  It  cannot  give  us  the  delightful  flavour  of 
full  reality.  Yet  in  imagination  we  feast  upon  the  de- 
tails. The  images  group  together;  we  face  towards 
them,  or  we  turn  away.  We  have  measured  wills  with 
the  strange  creature  whose  beliefs  seem  so  distant 
from  our  own.  Similarly,  any  simple  passionate  ex- 
pression by  another  of  sadness  or  of  hope,  betrays  to 
us,  within  ourselves,  latent  tendencies  to  action  far 
below  the  thin  crust  of  sensation  upon  which  our 
present  life  revolves. 

If,  however,  the  material  is  more  complex,  a  delib- 
erate effort  to  sympathize  will  be  required.  If  the 
documents  are  not  human  but  written,  not  only  the 
material  but  the  beliefs  which  interest  us  in  the 
documents  will  vary  in  quality.  The  acts  of  will  are 
no  longer  direct  adjustments  to  momentary  impulse. 
Beliefs  which  find  expression  in  verse  or  in  writing 
are  already  partly  detached  from  the  intense  physi- 
cal excitements  which  alone  give  the  Veddah  his 
chance  to  express  his  purposes.  The  minds  of  the 
men  who  make  songs  are  of  a  paler  and  less  resonant 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  61 

fibre.  Sudden  upheavals  of  the  emotional  apparatus 
are  more  rare.  Fewer  stimulations  result  directly  in 
deeds.  There  are  more  interests  which  involve  a  long 
series  of  approaches  to  an  end.  If  the  feelings  seem 
less  vivid  to  us,  it  is  because  they  are  less  physio- 
logical, and  more  evenly  distributed.  To  the  singer 
they  seem  more  vivid ;  they  are  more  the  expres- 
sion of  his  personality  and  less  of  his  body.  But  all  this, 
unfortunately,  hides  the  beliefs  in  the  song  from 
him  who  is  searching  from  without  for  the  inner 
value  of  the  song  to  the  singer.  To  the  observer 
from  without  the  song  expresses  the  person  less 
candidly  than  the  dance.  The  poet,  the  maker  of  the 
verse,  cannot  put  himself  into  his  words  as  pre-ani- 
mistic  man  can  throw  himself  without  reserve  into 
a  lumbering  bodily  rhythm.  The  poet  cannot  easily 
lose  himself  in  undirected  passion ;  cannot  give  as 
much  of  himself  with  his  song ;  nor  can  he  use  mas- 
sive physical  vibrations.  He  severs  himself  from  his 
body  *,  he  faces  his  own  body.  The  complexity  of 
his  beliefs  prevents  him  from  expressing  himself  com- 
pletely. Consequently  we  do  not  find  more  of  him  in 
the  poem  than  he  has  himself  put  there.  When  the 
song  becomes  prose  it  is  still  more  depersonalized.  It 


52         PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

restrains  beliefs  and  becomes  a  mere  thread  of  ab- 
stractions and  of  hard  outlines  ;  it  can  speak  only  of 
what  is  common  property ;  thus  beliefs  are  spun  out 
into  generalities. 

But  in  the  Science  of  Religion  we  cannot  accept 
anything  verbal  as  having  in  itself  personal  value. 
Nothing  impersonal,  nothing  abstract,  can  pass  for 
religion.  Words  at  their  best  are  a  kind  of  debased 
currency.  Easily  we  forget  how  subsidiary  a  word  is 
to  the  meaning  which  the  user  of  the  word  gives  it. 
Suppose  now  we  have  a  great  mass  of  incanta- 
tions, epitaphs,  rituals,  meditations,  books  of  ori- 
gins, formulas  of  salutations,  and  dreams  of  the  life 
of  the  soul.  How  can  these  words  have  value  to  us  ? 
How  can  we  arouse  in  ourselves  sympathetic  reac- 
tions? Can  we,  in  any  degree,  repeat  the  quick  judge- 
ments and  the  emotions  of  the  man  who  used  these 
very  words  when  beset  by  starvation  or  death,  or 
by  brutal  tyrants  ?  Or  can  we  repeat  the  feelings  of 
the  victor  exulting  in  harvests,  and  bright  skies, 
and  in  deliverance  from  enemies? 

The  belief  of  the  man  who  used  the  words  can  be 
a  value  to  us  only  so  far  as  we  can  compare  the 
imagined  inner  mental  states  of  the  stranger  with 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  53 

our  own  inner  life.  Otherwise  we  may  translate  the 
hymn,  we  may  edit  the  manuscript,  and  publish  as 
many  texts  as  we  please,  but  we  shall  remain  dead 
to  the  religion  expressed  in  the  words.  Any  religion 
that  we  can  understand  must  be  a  sense  of  corre- 
spondence of  values  which  are  alive  within  us.  We 
must  reconstruct  the  inner  meaning  out  of  beliefs  of 
our  own.  We  must  imagine  ourselves  feeling  the 
values  as  the  harvester  or  the  bacchanal  or  the 
anchorite  felt  them.  Then  our  feelings  fall  directly 
into  some  kind  of  a  unified  belief.  There  will  be  new 
impulses  to  act,  a  new  balance,  and  a  new  act  of  will 
crystallizing  about  the  verbal  picture.  If  we  have 
any  heart  for  sorrow  of  our  own,  if  we  can  feel  delight 
ourselves,  then  we  can  interpolate  feelings  of  our  own 
into  the  record.  But  it  is  of  ourselves  that  we  vitalize 
the  words.  Constantly  we  test  the  attitude  which  we 
have  developed  artificially  within  ourselves  ;  from  this 
process  we  acquire  a  keener  sense  of  the  difference  be- 
tween our  ordinary  state  of  mind  and  that  which  we 
are  trying  to  reproduce.  As  the  distinctions  become 
more  clear,  as  we  decide  how  we  ourselves  should  act 
if  we  were  equipped  with  the  stranger's  sensations,  we 
begin  to  estimate  the  value  to  ourselves  of  the  religion 


54        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

which  we  are  trying  hypothetically  to  feel.  And  in  pro- 
portion as  our  own  religion  implies  much  to  ourselves, 
the  nearer  our  reconstruction  will  be  to  the  other's 
actual  belief.  In  the  experiment  our  own  judgement 
will  become  much  more  definite  to  ourselves,  and 
the  belief  of  the  other  will  seem  real  as  never  before. 
A  sharp  contrast  of  will  gives  us  a  firmer  poise  and 
gives  the  stranger  the  freshness  of  life. 

This  reconstruction  of  another's  will  is  a  familiar 
process  to  us.  Every  drama  we  have  read  is  an  experi- 
ment of  this  kind.  Delight  in  the  drama  is  distinct 
from  the  mere  reading  of  the  pages.  Our  aesthetic 
pleasure  and  our  artistic  judgement  demand  far  more 
than  accurate  reading.  If  the  characters  of  the  drama 
are  to  be  more  than  names,  we  must  feel  their  pas- 
sions, their  ecstasies  and  their  pains;  we  must  feel 
their  suspense.  But  the  feelings  and  beliefs  which 
make  the  characters  must  be  in  us.  To  some  of  us  Lear 
is  a  mere  name;  the  words  he  speaks  are  sounds  with 
no  values.  To  others  he  is  a  person  more  distinct  than 
we  are  ourselves.  To  some  of  us  Maeterlinck's  Meli- 
sande  is  a  wan  and  repellent  caricature,  to  others  a 
definite  and  impressive  character.  In  other  words,  we 
might  say  that  Lear  and  Antigone  are  merely  words, 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  55 

not  persons,  until  we  make  them  alive  out  of  our  own 
store  of  human  passions.  It  is  not  that  we  imitate 
feelings  alien  to  ourselves,  but  rather,  out  of  the  dim 
background  of  feeling  in  ourselves  we  bring  forth  a 
grouping,  uncombined  hitherto,  of  our  own  feelings, 
now  first  unified  by  the  genius  of  the  dramatist, 
henceforth  permanent  in  us  under  the  name  Antigone 
or  Lear.  These  characters,  then,  are  objectifications 
of  feelings.  It  is  our  own  feelings  which  we  see  pass 
before  us  as  Lear  or  as  some  ethereal  creature  with 
an  Attic  or  a  Gallic  name;  they  are  definite  objects; 
they  live  within  us  a  life  of  their  own. 

Quite  distinct  is  another  kind  of  feeling.  We  take 
sides  with  or  against  the  persons  of  the  drama;  we 
avoid  them  or  welcome  them;  we  reject  them  or  ac- 
cept them;  our  sympathy  goes  to  them  or  we  hold 
aloof;  we  suffer  with  their  agony.  These  feelings  are 
not  those  which  constitute  the  persons  of  the  drama; 
these  feelings  are  not  objects  to  us;  they  are  sympa- 
thetic feelings ;  they  are  our  personal  attitudes  towards 
the  characters  already  formed;  they  are  the  reaction 
of  the  observer  to  the  object  of  his  attention. 

At  the  end  of  the  drama  there  are,  besides  these 
sympathetic   feelings,  yet   other   personal    feelings. 


56        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

There  is  a  resultant  mood;  we  are  exultant  in  spite  of 
the  sight  of  falseness  and  of  pain,  in  spite  of  our  own 
doubt  and  gloom.  The  feeling  towards  the  drama  as 
a  whole  results  in  a  new  total  feeling  of  our  own. 
The  total  self  includes  now  a  new  insight  into  life;  it 
has  felt  itself  in  new  activities.  A  judgement  has  found 
total  expression,  complete  in  itself,  in  a  work  of  art 
which  for  the  moment  has  seemed  the  world.  The 
little  world  of  this  drama  has  its  own  stubbornness 
and  its  own  savagery ;  it  has  also  delicate  and  beau- 
tiful and  reckless  devotions.  Both  of  these  aspects  of 
this  drama  must  now  find  their  place  in  my  inner 
world.  Both  have  affected  myself.  Both  result  in  a 
new  relation  of  myself  to  the  world. 

Thus  the  drama  may  bring  us  back  to  religion  in 
that  it  makes  clearer  how  religious  conceptions  of  the 
gods  might  be  formed.  In  some  similar  way,  we  must 
lend  life  out  of  ourselves  if  we  are  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  a  tribal  god,  or  of  the  great  Indra,  or  of 
Dionysus.  We  bring  a  mass  of  concrete,  often  very 
trivial,  tales  into  consciousness.  We  empty  our  own 
minds  of  our  usual  reflections,  and  by  a  slight  strain 
of  attention  we  make  the  descriptions  of  the  gods 
alive  with  our  own  personal  prejudices  and  passions. 


PRIMITIVE  BELIEFS  57 

Directly,  then,  the  god  is  alive,  as  alive  as  Hamlet, 
alive  with  beliefs  of  his  worshippers.  So  the  concept  of 
the  god  also  consists  of  objectified  feelings;  he  ex- 
presses how  the  world  should  be  to  win  human  love 
and  approval.  In  a  symbol  the  concept  of  the  god  ex- 
presses a  standard  of  worth  by  which  the  world  is  to 
be  judged.  Similarly,  the  sympathetic  feelings  to- 
wards the  persons  in  the  drama  would  correspond  to 
the  human  loyalties  to  the  god  as  king  or  as  moral 
leader.  Such  sympathetic  loyalties  give  new  structure 
to  the  stuff  of  which  life  is  made ;  and  they  express  a 
kind  of  belief  which  we  hope  will  be  a  part  of  the 
total  expression  of  our  lives.  And  finally,  the  result- 
ant feeling,  as  the  drama  ends,  would  correspond  to 
the  deep  religious  belief  that  through  the  world  one 
vast  purpose  runs,  one  life,  one  plan  which  we  have 
followed,  which  for  a  time  we  have  understood, — one 
plan  which  we  accept  as  the  complete  fulfilment  of 
all  our  beliefs,  a  plan  to  which  all  that  is  best  in  us 
is  now  felt  to  correspond. 


LECTURE  FOURTH 


IV 
ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS 

THE  advance  from  the  prehuman  ancestor  to 
man  is  said  to  be  marked  by  three  discoveries: 
the  use  of  fire,  the  use  of  weapons,  and  the  use  of 
words  as  a  supplement  to  gesture  language.  To  make 
good  use  of  these  inventions  man  needed  yet  another 
discovery  of  another  kind.  He  needed  to  discover  that 
a  man's  life  is  worse  off  and  not  better  if  he  continues 
to  assume  that  human  life  is  so  small  an  affair  that 
its  outcome  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  That  assump- 
tion cannot  be  of  much  practical  value.  It  leads  men 
easily  to  a  kind  of  placid  despair,  to  the  feeling  that 
effort  is  futile.  Wherein  lies  the  root  of  this  indolent 
assumption?  Clearly,  it  is  in  the  assumption  that 
the  individual  human  being  is  self-sufficient;  that  he 
need  recognize  no  obligations  nor  do  anything  for 
reasons,  unless  he  choose;  or  that  he  need  not  even 
find  reasons  for  what  he  wants  to  do.  The  discovery 
required  was  religion,  the  discovery  that  each  man 
can  accept  as  the  fulfilment  of  his  own  purpose  a 
purpose  made  actual  in  a  society,  and  at  the  same 
time  rooted  in  reality.  This  discovery  of  the  corre- 

61 


62        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

spondence  of  one's  own  purpose  with  the  purposes  of 
society  gave  a  meaning  and  a  value  to  life  which  the 
blind  obedience  to  animal  impulses  had  not  given. 
So  long  as  man  knew  nothing  more  than  the  healthy 
action  of  his  own  body,  and  so  long  as  his  chief  de- 
light was  in  plenty  of  unimpeded  massive  sensations, — 
such  as  self-abandonment  to  the  crude  rhythms  of 
his  dance, — his  experience  would  be  too  simple  to  re- 
quire a  religious  reaction.  But  as  his  organism  be- 
comes finer,  his  experience  wider,  and  the  demands 
for  action  more  varied,  the  joy  in  purely  physical  ac- 
tion and  in  massive  emotional  upheavals  is  less  fre- 
quent. Many  ends,  as  he  finds,  cannot  be  attained  in 
isolated  bursts  of  passion ;  many  ends  can  be  attained 
only  when  he  is  conscious  of  acting  by  choice  as  a 
member  of  a  group,  or  as  a  part  of  a  whole.  Social 
loyalties  will  add  to  his  own  valuation  of  himself;  be- 
cause they  give  him  the  confidence  he  needs  to  face 
the  purposeless  forces  of  the  world.  Religion  is  a  de- 
vice which  helps  him  to  attain  this  goal,  that  is,  to 
find  himself  expressed  in  his  loyalties  and  to  discover 
the  worth  of  this  correspondence  by  testing  its  struc- 
ture in  the  stuff  of  his  own  experience.  Religion  is 
also  a  device  to  overcome  situations  of  social  tension, 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  63 

which,  as  he  has  found,  make  his  life  as  a  self-suffi- 
cient individual  impossible.  At  the  same  time  it  is  a 
device  to  control  the  actions  of  the  tribe.  Certain 
common  habits  are  found  to  correspond ;  certain  purely 
individual  habits  are  rejected.  The  man  finds  his  self 
in  his  social  habits  and  loyalties.  He  finds  himself  or- 
ganized with  over-individual  aims  in  view,  with  aims, 
that  is,  which  extend  beyond  the  range  of  his  indi- 
vidual life.  The  maintenance  of  the  social  body  be- 
gins to  have  a  supreme  value  in  itself;  and  it  assures 
to  the  individual  the  preservation  of  the  ends  without 
which  he  cannot  live.  It  is  surely  true  that  extreme 
situations  of  emotional  tension  result,  in  almost  every 
case,  in  the  formation  of  new  conceptions.  The  end 
which  releases  him  from  such  tensions,  if  it  be  an  end 
upon  which  he  will  stake  his  life,  is  represented  in  an 
idea  of  a  god.  The  god  is  the  picture  of  the  man  re- 
leased from  imperfections  and  tensions,  unbalked  by 
body,  or  beasts,  or  cosmic  weather.  The  god  is  the 
concept  embodying  some  latent  perfection  restricted 
within  the  man.  If  this  idea  of  the  god  be  accepted 
by  the  group  as  its  social  ideal,  the  first  step  in  re- 
ligion is  taken.  The  idea  of  a  tribal  god  expresses 
collective  judgements  which  are  religious.  As  soon  as 


64        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

the  concept  of  the  god  no  longer  oscillates  with  the 
individual's  moods,  it  attains  a  fixed  character.  It  ex- 
presses a  collective  value;  it  expresses  more  than  an 
emotion  emerging  and  diffusing  in  one  man;  it 
asserts  a  definite  solution,  by  a  body  of  persons,  of 
certain  problems  of  life.  When  the  assertion  is  firm, 
if  the  men  are  daring  and  persistent,  they  see  the 
fulfilment  of  their  purpose,  they  behold  the  god  do- 
ing with  ease  the  deeds  they  have  never  done  in  this 
world.  Henceforth  common  actions  are  controlled  by 
a  comparison  with  the  god's  completed  act.  The  con- 
cept grows  more  definite  as  it  represents  more  life,  as 
it  includes  more  beliefs,  as  it  orders  more  values,  as 
it  gives  more  direction  to  the  actions  of  the  group. 
The  god  assumes  authority  over  all  who  feel  the  need 
of  correspondence  between  their  own  lives  and  the 
ideal  action  which  he  symbolizes.  The  god  begins  to 
feel  the  unwavering  support  of  the  tribal  will.  He  be- 
comes independent  of  any  single  experience.  He  en- 
ters into  a  close  communion  with  each  member  of  the 
common  life.  His  life  is  inseparable  from  their  life; 
their  life  is  worthless  if  severed  from  his  life.  Their 
social  rites  and  usages  are  exercises  in  imitation  of  his 
life.  Their  hymns  urge  them  on  to  feel  the  joy  of 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  65 

completed  effort  as  he  feels  it;  to  feel  the  world,  in 
actual  experience,  as  a  responsive  whole,  wherein  false 
notes  and  discords  persistent  in  man  are  resolved  into 
one  harmony  including  the  single  tones. 

An  example  of  the  formation  of  the  idea  of  a  per- 
sonal protector,  and  of  the  expansion  of  this  concept 
into  the  concept  of  a  god  expressive  of  the  collective 
beliefs  of  a  society,  is  given  us  in  an  accurate  and 
very  subtle  study  of  the  religion  of  the  Omaha  tribe. 
In  the  Legend  of  the  Sacred  Pole,  Miss  Fletcher  tells 
us  how  the  Sioux  boy  obtains  his  protector.  The  le- 
gend recounts  how  this  protector  was  first  discovered. 
"The  people  felt  themselves  weak  and  poor.  The  old 
men  gathered  together  and  said,  'Let  us  make  our 
children  cry  to  Wakonda.'  So  they  took  their  chil- 
dren, covered  their  faces  with  soft  clay,  and  sent  them 
forth  to  lonely  places.  The  old  men  said,  'You  shall 
go  forth  and  cry  to  Wakonda.  When  on  the  hills  you 
shall  not  ask  for  any  particular  thing.  Whatever  is 
good  that  may  Wakonda  give.' "  This  rite  has  been 
observed  up  to  the  present  day.  The  boy  is  told  what 
he  is  to  do,  moistened  earth  is  put  upon  his  head  and 
face,  a  small  bow  and  arrows  are  given  him.  He  seeks 
a  secluded  spot  on  some  high  hill ;  and  under  the  pines 


66        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

he  chants  the  prayer;  he  lifts  to  heaven  his  hands  wet 
with  tears  and  then  lays  them  on  the  earth;  he  fasts, 
until  at  last  after  some  days  he  falls  into  a  sleep  or 
trance.  If  in  his  dream  or  trance  he  hear  or  see  any- 
thing, that  thing  is  to  become  the  special  mediator 
through  which  he  receives  aid.  Then,  the  ordeal  over, 
the  youth  returns  for  food  and  rest.  No  one  questions 
him,  but  at  the  end  of  four  days  he  confides  his  vision 
to  some  old  man,  and  starts  out  to  find  the  animal 
he  has  seen  in  his  trance.  The  totem  is  the  symbol  of 
this  animal.  The  totem  is  the  most  sacred  thing  he 
can  possess.  By  it  his  natural  powers  are  to  be  re- 
enforced  so  as  to  give  him  success  as  a  hunter,  vic- 
tory as  a  warrior,  and  even  ability  to  see  into  the 
future. 

The  assumption  in  this  belief  is  that  all  things 
animate  and  inanimate  are  pervaded  by  one  common 
life,  called  wakonda  or  orenda.  This  life  is  continu- 
ous and  cannot  be  broken. 

The  men  who  have  received  the  same  vision  group 
together.  This  is  the  simplest  form  of  social  action. 
Those  who  see  the  bear  make  up  the  Bear  Society ; 
those  to  whom  the  thunder  comes  form  the  Thun- 
der Society.  The  tribe  is  formed  by  certain   fixed 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  67 

relations  between  these  totem-bands,  and  all  these 
totem-bands  receive  their  organization  from  the 
wakonda. 

The  concept  of  the  god  is  then  a  statement  by  the 
tribe  of  its  collective  values  for  life.  It  matters  little 
how  logical  the  concept  be,  provided  social  values 
are  embodied  in  it,  and  provided  the  actions  of  the 
individual  and  the  impulses  of  the  tribe  are  governed 
and  lifted  up  towards  this  concept.  It  matters  much 
that  the  concept  should  embody  in  vivid  form  con- 
duct of  life  indispensable  to  the  tribe  as  a  whole. 

If  now  we  should  wish  to  repeat  or  to  understand 
in  any  degree  the  beliefs  and  loyalties  burning  in 
the  soul  of  the  youthful  initiate,  we  must  strip  off, 
for  a  moment,  layer  after  layer  of  mental  categories 
with  which,  so  far  as  we  are  civilized,  we  have  over- 
laden the  passions  of  the  primitive  man  within  our- 
selves. This  is  not  such  a  difficult  process  for  us  to- 
day. When  we  see  the  paroxysms  of  our  young  men 
supporting  with  their  voices  the  efforts  of  their 
comrades  in  the  games,  we  are  in  range  with  similar 
mental  levels.  In  the  minds  of  youth  intent  upon 
such  contests  there  are  no  obstacles  to  prevent  the 
will  from  focusing  upon  a  single  scale  of  values.  The 


68        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

objects  of  consciousness  are  unclassified  except  with 
reference  to  the  desire  to  surpass  the  opponent.  If 
these  objects  of  consciousness  could  find  themselves 
expressed  in  the  concept  of  a  single  animal  which 
should  express  in  actions  the  harsher  predatory  pas- 
sions surging  to  and  fro  from  margin  to  margin  of 
consciousness,  we  should  be  very  near  the  attitude  of 
will  in  the  Sioux  boy.  A  certain  course  of  action  is 
extremely  prized.  By  training  his  mind  and  body 
for  days,  the  Sioux  boy  expels  from  his  mind  con- 
cepts discordant  with  this  course  of  action.  He  fills 
his  mind  with  pictures  of  heroes;  these  heroes  are 
the  animals;  and  their  deeds  are  examples  of  life.  He 
regards  these  animal  heroes  with  sincere  admiration. 
His  life  is  spent  in  contention  with  them.  When  he 
is  alone,  they  surpass  him  in  power.  The  more  he 
thinks  of  them  the  more  his  life  is  effective,  the 
more  valuable  he  becomes  to  his  tribe.  If  he  is  un- 
true to  the  ideal  of  life  expressed  in  the  animal,  his 
life  is  left  without  guidance.  We  civilized  men  can- 
not so  easily  express  supreme  aims  in  life  by  symbols 
which  are  living  animals.  And  furthermore,  those 
who  direct  our  education  do  not  encourage  us  so  to 
express  ourselves,  or  teach   us   to  boast  of  ancestry 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  69 

from  a  wolf  or  from  a  raven.  But  if  we  could  for  a 
moment  imagine  ourselves  subjected  to  similar  influ- 
ences, I  think  we  may  assume  that  our  imagination 
might  take  the  same  course.  It  is  only  that  our  train- 
ing has  been  for  fifty  generations  in  a  very  different 
direction.  Our  education  aims  to  reduce  the  force  of 
any  one  such  emotion.  We  strive  to  make  it  impos- 
sible for  a  man  to  reduce  himself  to  a  single  scale  of 
values  until  he  become  an  inert  mass  so  far  as  other 
values  are  concerned.  If  one  of  us  should  so  reduce 
himself,  we  should  say  that  such  a  one  does  not  know 
what  he  is  about,  although  the  individual  in  ques- 
tion might  assure  us  he  feels  very  much  alive.  To-day 
above  all  other  habits  of  mind  we  encourage  reflec- 
tion. In  types  of  mind  like  the  Sioux,  men  living  in 
compact  groups  bound  together  by  blood  relation- 
ships, there  is  almost  no  reflection,  or  at  least  no 
habit  of  reflection.  Even  in  advanced  cases  of  the 
same  type,  in  the  ordinary  life  of  the  Greek  city  or 
of  the  Roman  gens,  there  was  the  same  lack  of  reflec- 
tion, the  same  inability  to  feel  more  than  one  scale 
of  values  at  a  time,  and  the  same  passive  mind 
overwhelmed  by  the  weight  of  collective  beliefs. 
There  were  no  habits  of  experiment  or  of  discussion, 


70        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

and  but  little  analysis  of  objects.  There  was  no  ques- 
tioning of  the  value  of  sensations.  There  was  no 
search  for  the  origin  of  an  idea  or  for  its  right  to 
existence.  Every  idea  was  accepted  without  reserve 
and  as  it  appeared.  The  apparent  and  the  real  were 
identical.  It  would  appear,  then,  that  we  can  never 
think  as  the  Sioux  thinks,  or  as  men  in  the  fields  of 
Attica  thought.  Still  after  all,  since  man  has  existed, 
the  world,  in  its  main  outlines  and  in  its  laws,  has 
not  changed.  The  nervous  mechanism  and  the  sim- 
ple sensations  seem  much  the  same.  It  is  the  grouping 
of  sensations  that  has  changed.  The  composition,  the 
structure,  the  methods  of  classifying  the  mental  units, 
have  greatly  changed.  Thus  it  might  yet  be  possible 
to  dissever  the  primitive  layer  from  the  derived  layers 
of  consciousness,  the  simple  from  the  complex. 

Consequently  if  we  wish  to  repeat  the  scale  of  val- 
ues or  the  system  of  beliefs  of  the  Omaha  Indian, 
or  of  any  other  ancestral  system,  or  of  any  belief  in 
one  common  soul  life  reincorporating  itself  in  the 
transitory  lives  of  individual  members  of  the  tribe,  we 
must  strip  ourselves  of  our  modern  habits  of  mind, — 
we  must  simplify  the  classification  of  our  sensations 
aud  cultivate  a  less  active  mind. 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  71 

This  means  that  all  modern  philosophy,  which  in- 
variably has  taught  that  the  human  understanding 
has  an  activity  and  an  individuality  of  its  own,  must 
be  given  up.  Aristotle  also,  who  taught  that  each 
single  act  considered  in  itself  is  our  work,  although 
as  a  whole  the  active  intellect  is  a  portion  of  the  di- 
vine reason,  must  be  abandoned.  Plato  was  convinced 
that  a  man  contributes  nothing  to  the  elaboration  of 
any  active  states;  he  does  not  even  suspect  the  pre- 
sence in  himself  of  a  power  to  change  his  thoughts. 
To  Plato's  thinking,  ideas  come  from  without,  inter- 
mingled, easy  to  confound;  yet  each  is  complete  in  it- 
self. There  are  no  degrees  in  the  assimilation  of  im- 
pressions. Ideas  are  poured  into  us  as  water  into  a 
pool.  The  soul  contributes  nothing  to  the  exis- 
tence, or  to  the  grouping,  or  to  the  changes  of  sensa- 
tions. 

One  step  backward  beyond  Plato  brings  us  into  an- 
other mental  world.  We  are  on  a  level  with  the  clans- 
men of  the  Iliad,  we  are  mental  contemporaries  of  the 
Buddha,  we  are  not  far  from  the  world  of  the  Omaha. 
If  we  can  find  our  way  at  all  in  this  world,  we  find  it 
is  arranged  in  very  simple  mental  series.  There,  one 
must  search  to  find  any  general  ideas,  or  more  than 


72        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

a  few  abstract  terms.  But  there  is  a  sea  of  crude  feel- 
ing, of  antipathies  and  loyalties.  The  individual  can 
feel  only  a  single  strong  emotion  at  one  time.  All 
other  feelings  than  the  one  strong  emotion  are  felt 
only  in  common  with  a  mass  of  men.  Insight  is  shal- 
low, and  self-possession  is  easily  relaxed.  Each  man  is 
an  automatic  mass  of  blind  impulses,  a  mass  which 
passively  collects  social  stimulations.  Like  a  physical 
contagion,  courage  comes  from  without.  Cowardice, 
likewise,  is  something  not  ourselves.  Now  the  gods  are 
the  names  of  the  permanent  and  more  mighty  of  these 
emotions.  The  god  launches  forth  a  passion  and  de- 
scends upon  men  as  a  stampede  comes  over  a  drove  of 
cattle.  All  critical  turns  in  life,  the  power  of  attack 
at  the  right  instant,  the  unaccountable  weakening 
in  emergencies, — this  is  the  work  of  gods,  or  is  it 
not  rather,  the  god  himself?  Passions,  desires  and 
judgements  are,  at  best,  tools,  weapons  or  ornaments 
borrowed  in  times  of  unexpected  stress.  Passions  and 
judgements  do  not  belong  to  a  man,  do  not  arise  in 
him,  and  are  not  part  of  himself.  Passions  rove  about 
the  world ;  they  are  sent  into  a  man ;  they  surge  through 
the  empty  spaces  within  him;  they  sting  the  inert 
body  into  frenzy.  These  nomad  inhabitants  of  the 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  73 

mind,  to  us  pale  subjective  conflicts  of  values,  are  to 
him  living  things,  active  wills,  realities  more  real  than 
himself.  Any  unaccountable  event,  even  the  quiver  of 
the  leaf  fluttering  unexpectedly  in  the  breeze,  may  be 
the  action  of  some  god.  If  strange  passions  become 
persistent  in  him ;  if  they  require  his  constant  atten- 
tion; if  they  become  of  such  importance  that  the 
whole  tribe  is  compelled  to  take  an  attitude  towards 
them,  then  the  god  has  proved  the  passion  to  be  his 
act.  In  other  words,  the  passion  expresses  such  judge- 
ments upon  life  that  life  cannot  continue  indifferent 
to  these  judgements.  Life  is  not  a  whole  without  them. 
The  judgement  is  then  a  religious  judgement.  Society 
may  fall  to  pieces  if  these  judgements  are  ignored. 
Social  institutions  are  held  together  by  hospitality  to 
the  passions  of  the  more  majestic  of  these  wandering 
gods.  Each  of  the  gods  has  his  fixed  programme  of 
action.  A  man  cannot  live  the  night  through  if  he 
has  forfeited  the  respect  of  the  gods  for  him  or  lost 
their  love.  He  cannot  be  himself  if  estranged  from 
them.  If  he  be  in  sore  distress,  he  cries  out  to  the 
great  over-lord,  heretofore  remote  at  the  circumfer- 
ence of  human  living,  but  now  swiftly  approaching 
the  centre  of  his  life. 


74        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

Great  emotions  and  the  release  from  great  emo- 
tions both  come,  then,  from  without.  The  decisive 
stroke  is  usually  the  act  of  a  god.  The  value  of  the 
act  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  individual  will.  The 
relation  between  a  man  and  his  thoughts  is  almost  the 
reverse  of  the  normal  relation  as  we  think  of  it  to-day. 
The  man's  mind  is  more  like  the  mind  of  a  child  or 
of  a  hypnotized  subject.  The  great  passion  lives;  it 
energizes  in  the  man ;  he  is  its  docile  tool,  and  is  less 
alive  than  the  passion  in  him.  The  man  himself  hesi- 
tates to  act.  It  seems  impossible  to  act;  yet  some 
deed  must  be  done.  Then  it  is  that  the  god  puts  de- 
cision into  the  man. 

If,  now,  the  god  be  the  conceptual  embodiment  of 
such  a  passive  herd-instinct,  the  positive  human  gain 
of  this  system  of  beliefs  becomes  forthwith  quite  pal- 
pable. In  the  social  life  the  interests  of  each  indi- 
vidual depend  upon  the  welfare  of  the  whole  group. 
Each  life  is  forfeit  to  each  other  life.  The  original 
animal  instincts,  the  sex  instinct,  the  lust  of  the 
power  to  kill,  the  cry  of  hunger,  the  need  of  protec- 
tion for  property  and  self,  might  yield  to  the  more 
human  interests  of  admiration,  of  respect,  of  delight 
in  common  purposes,  of  disinterested  affection.  The 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  75 

more  firm  the  texture  of  the  tribal  life,  the  greater 
would  be  the  dependence  of  the  individual,  and  the 
more  insistent  his  wish  that  the  customs  of  the  clans 
be  conserved. 

Thus,  in  ancestral  systems,  the  concept  of  the  god 
which  expresses  the  social  ideal  might  widen  until  the 
god  might  be  conceived  as  the  guardian  of  the  collec- 
tive life  of  the  clan.  At  the  same  time,  social  usages, 
the  resultants  of  past  and  present  individual  purposes, 
would  be  the  bonds  by  which  the  god  would  hold  his 
tribe  together.  It  may  be  the  god  is  a  deified  ances- 
tor ;  his  quality  in  battle  and  in  councils  of  the  tribe 
is  known.  By  effective  living  he  has  won  his  way  to 
leadership ;  the  tribe  respects  him  and  loves  him  for 
his  work.  His  will  expresses  the  tribal  will.  His  will 
represents  voluntary  loyalties  and  voluntary  restric- 
tions of  purely  individual  desires.  The  concept  of  the 
god  would  express  a  resultant  ideal  and  is  also  an 
actual  will.  Some  such  expression  of  the  resultant 
ideal  is  a  necessary  condition  for  the  more  complex 
social  life  of  a  clan.  The  god  is  then  more  than  a  tem- 
porary passion  or  even  guardian  ;  he  becomes  the  un- 
dying king.  He  himself  is  offended  in  case  his  will 
be  transgressed.    The  correspondence  is    complete; 


76        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

each  single  will  finds  fulfilment  in  him,  the  symbol 
of  the  collective  purpose  of  the  tribe.  Such  a  system 
implies  a  disinterested  choice  of  social  values ;  yet 
there  is  never  an  entire  break  with  individual  inter- 
ests. Two  great  levels  correspond:  the  god,  the  re- 
presentative of  the  common  ideals  of  the  tribe,  is  con- 
scious of  a  social  dignity  of  his  own  ;  and  again,  each 
man,  under  the  guidance  of  the  god,  secures  his  own 
personal  welfare.  In  terms  of  ritual,  the  god  delights 
in  sacrifices,  the  physical  signs  of  deferential  affec- 
tion towards  himself,  and,  correspondingly,  he  res- 
cues his  worshippers  who  love  him  and  obey  him  ;  or, 
conversely,  he  thwarts  the  impious  who  pay  him  no 
devotion  or  who  lightly  mutilate  customs  of  which  the 
life  of  his  tribe  consists.  Thus,  trust  in  the  will  of 
the  god  and  the  personal  feeling  of  obligation  corre- 
spond ;  and  the  will  of  the  god  embodies  the  sanc- 
tion of  right ;  personal  moral  ideals  inhere  in  the  will 
of  the  god ;  and  his  will  is  the  moral  imperative. 

In  such  wise  the  half-brutal  and  egoistic  inter- 
course between  gods  and  men  weakens  on  both  sides ; 
and  common  interests  in  conduct  and  in  art,  and  a 
common  sense  of  self-respect,  are  correspondingly 
stronger.  The  fulfilment  of  life  is  over-individual, 


ANCESTRAL  SYSTEMS  77 

the  full  value  of  life  cannot  be  attained  by  a  solitary 
will.  The  criterion  of  value  cannot  depend  upon  any 
one  will ;  the  criterion  of  right  is  the  will  to  serve  a 
social  ideal  such  as  to  include  and  preserve  the  wider 
interests  of  each  member.  The  god  embodies  the  col- 
lective ideal ;  he  rises  above  the  bare  impulses  of  ani- 
mal life ;  at  the  same  time  selfish  motives  as  reasons 
for  worship  become  meaningless  and  offensive. 

Some  sense  of  correspondence  of  these  two  levels, 
(of  the  individual  impulse  and  of  the  collective  values,) 
is  one  of  the  features  without  which  no  religion  can 
be  complete. 

The  defect  of  the  ancestral  system  would  probably 
be  that  the  god  wavers,  and  knows  not  how  to  lead. 
It  may  be  that  the  god  has  not  learned  to  reflect  as 
soundly  as  he  knows  how  to  act.  If  such  a  god  be 
compelled  to  deliberate,  he  becomes  less  imposing. 
He  has  been  wont  to  strike  out  first,  and  forecast  his 
action  after.  Later  this  course  suffices  not  for  suc- 
cessful guidance  of  the  tribe.  If  now  it  appear  neces- 
sary to  think  before  acting,  such  deliberation,  to 
such  a  mind  as  his,  might  seem  to  be  the  feeling 
that  he  is  the  accidental  meeting-point  of  two  possi- 
ble courses  of  action. 


78        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

The  ancestral  god  is  the  embodiment  of  the  social 
ideal  of  action.  If,  then,  he  hesitates  to  act,  he  must 
abdicate.  This  means  that  the  system  of  collective 
beliefs,  if  not  supplemented  by  normative  beliefs, 
now  proves  inefficient.  This  is  the  stage  through 
which  all  Europe  was  passing  when  the  Platonists 
and  Christians  were  upheaving  the  consciences  of 
men. 

Normative  beliefs  or  positive  mystical  beliefs  prove 
most  effective  precisely  at  the  point  where  the  social 
ideal  begins  to  break  down,  at  the  point  where  the 
great  world-religions  begin  to  add  normative  stand- 
ards to  merely  collective  ideals.  And  at  this  point 
human  life  begins  to  make  for  itself  a  new  and  a  no- 
bler world. 


LECTURE  FIFTH 


V 
MYSTICAL  IDEALS 

MYSTICISM  always  presupposes  more  or  less 
highly  elaborated  social  systems.  Mystical 
ideals  are  most  likely  to  supervene  when  the  social 
ideal  begins  to  waver.  But,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
society,  an  ascetic  mysticism,  at  its  best,  must  be  a 
temporary  and  restricted  business.  It  intervenes,  pro- 
visionally, after  the  old  ideal  can  no  longer  dominate 
the  clan.  It  may  not  be  said  under  just  what  condi- 
tions mysticism  begins  to  break  through  the  social 
mind;  but  very  often  it  dawns  upon  the  mind  when 
men  begin  to  meditate  upon  the  force  of  words;  es- 
pecially when  the  word  is  a  concept  of  great  dignity 
and  when  the  stream  of  consciousness  narrows  and 
centres  repeatedly  upon  that  word. 

Among  the  Iroquois  Indians,  when  the  chief  of  one 
of  the  two  phratries  dies,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  one 
phratry  to  condole  with  the  other  for  its  loss.  The 
phratry  must  install  another  person.  It  must  give  this 
person  the  title  and  the  insignia  of  the  dead  chief. 
It  must  bring  the  dead  chief  to  life  in  the  person  of 
his  successor.  All  this  is  accomplished  by  the  potency 

81 


82         PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

of  a  ritual.  Unfortunately,  the  ritual  does  more:  the 
words  are  so  mighty  that  the  ceremony  cannot  be 
held  in  the  spring  or  in  the  summer.  For  then  the 
words  might  kill  the  seed  for  planting,  or  blight  the 
growing  grain  and  fruits.  It  appears  that  the  power 
exerted  by  the  words  is  more  than  sufficient  to  pro- 
mote the  welfare  of  the  tribe.  If  its  use  is  untimely,  it 
destroys  the  food  of  the  tribe.  This  mystic  power  is 
the  force  in  the  word  itself.  The  force  of  the  word  is 
conceived  as  physically  as  the  body  which  expresses 
the  force  of  the  dance.  The  meaning  of  the  word  is  a 
physical  act.  All  the  changes  of  inorganic  matter  are 
thought  to  be  a  kind  of  music  chanted  by  physical 
things.  The  sounds  produced  by  the  life  of  the  forest 
are  expressions  of  the  wills  of  animate  beings.  The 
trees  and  animals  are  exercising  the  mystic  power 
of  their  rituals.  Since  all  motions  of  bodies  are 
thought  to  be  acts  of  living  beings,  and  since  motions 
are  accompanied  by  sounds,  sounds  are  the  evidence 
that  some  will  is  exerting  a  mystic  potency  with  the 
intention  of  effecting  some  purpose.  The  cry  of  a  bird, 
the  sigh  of  the  wind,  the  voices  of  the  night,  the 
moaning  of  the  storm,  the  cracking  of  river-ice,  are 
conceived  to  be  the  chants  of  various  bodies  giving 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  83 

forth  words  in  the  exercise  of  mystic  power.  Mr.  Hew- 
itt, who  tells  us  of  this,  to  whom  the  Iroquois  is 
native  speech,  informs  us  that  this  power  which  the 
Iroquoians  trust  is  called  orenda.  The  same  concept 
is  found  among  other  peoples.  A  few  cases  may  sug- 
gest to  us  the  force  of  this  idea  to  the  Iroquoian 
mind:  if  a  youth,  in  a  game  of  skill,  overcomes  an- 
other, his  orenda  overcomes  the  orenda  of  the  other; 
if  clan  is  pitted  against  clan,  in  public  games,  men 
reputed  to  possess  powerful  orenda  are  engaged  to 
suppress  the  orenda  of  the  antagonists;  when  a  storm 
is  brewing,  the  storm -maker  is  preparing  orenda. 
Thus,  singing  means  that  the  singer  or  chanter, 
whether  he  be  beast,  bird,  wind,  ti'ee,  stone  or  man, 
is  putting  forth  his  mystic  power  to  execute  his  will. 
The  medicine-man  chants  in  imitation  of  one  of  the 
beings  about  him :  it  may  be  an  insect  or  beetle,  it  may 
be  the  locust.  The  locust  is  called  the  Corn-Ripener. 
When  it  sings  early  in  the  morning,  the  day  is  hot 
and  the  corn  will  ripen.  The  inference  is  that  the  lo- 
cust controls  by  his  chant  the  summer  heat  and  the 
crops  of  maize.  His  singing  is  the  exertion  of  his  orenda 
to  bring  on  the  heat  necessary  to  ripen  the  corn.  In 
like  manner  the  rabbit  sings,  and  by  cutting  the  bark 


84        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

at  the  right  height,  indicates  the  depth  of  the  win- 
ter's snow.  The  orenda  controls  the  falling  of  the 
snow.  Again,  the  word  which  is  equivalent  to  the  verb 
"to  pray*"  does  not  signify  a  petition,  but,  rather,  sig- 
nifies an  act  which  indicates  that  he  who  desires  some- 
thing from  the  body  controlling  an  orenda  must  first 
lay  his  own  orenda  down.  The  sentence-word,  "he 
prays,"  would  then  imply  defeat,  surrender,  self-abne- 
gation or  a  plea  for  life. 

The  Iroquois  interprets  the  activities  of  the  whole  of 
nature  to  be  a  ceaseless  struggle  of  one  orenda  against 
another.  To  obtain  welfare  he  must  exert  his  own 
orenda  or  employ  devices,  gifts,  praise  or  self-abase- 
ment to  persuade  other  more  powerful  beings  to  exert 
their  orenda  in  his  behalf.  But  gradually,  in  the  stress 
of  practical  life,  he  unveils  the  weakness  of  the  orenda 
in  which  he  has  learned  to  trust.  He  searches  for  more 
inclusive  and  more  powerful  charms.  By  means  of  ob- 
taining favours  and  gifts  from  the  more  vigorous  and 
insistent  wills  in  the  environment,  he  discovers  the 
great  collective  orenda^  that  is,  the  gods.  His  religion 
is  then  a  highly  developed  system  of  words  and  sym- 
bolic acts,  in  intricate  complications,  employed  to 
control  the  Iroquoian  world.  Life  consists  in  the  abil- 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  85 

ity  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  mysterious  chants  which 
fill  the  world.  Success  consists  in  mastering  the  chants 
which  really  count.  Mystic  power  is  inherent  in  all 
things ;  it  is  everywhere,  and  over  and  below  every- 
thing. There  is  nothing  which  is  beyond  it.  All  social 
usages  become  affected  by  it.  It  keeps  unbroken  the 
thread  of  life  running  through  all  things. 

This  idea  of  the  orenda  lacks  only  a  certain  aesthe- 
tic definiteness  to  engender  one  of  the  great  mystical 
beliefs.  A  similar  system  of  ideas,  with  regard  to  one 
power  inherent  in  all  things,  prevails  upon  the  peoples 
on  the  west  African  coast.  The  negro  is  more  ad- 
vanced in  embodying  his  religious  conceptions  than 
the  American  Indian.  His  sense  of  rhythm  is  more 
sensitive.  His  feeling  for  the  cosmic  sequences  is  more 
acute.  His  lunar  and  solar  myths  are  more  complex. 
He  has  vague  notions  of  time  reading  back  into  in- 
calculable distance;  he  has  a  suspicion  that  there  are 
fixed  procedures  for  the  whole  of  things.  The  great 
cosmic  rhythms  impress  him  in  half-conscious  fashion ; 
but  they  do  not  rouse  him  to  question  them.  He  is 
aware  of  them  only  so  far  that  he  would  be  amazed 
if  they  should  cease.  These  suspicions  of  cosmic  regu- 
larity are  associated  in  his  mind  with  the  distant 


86         PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

spirit  of  the  sky.  The  clear  day-sky  is  not  subject  to 
change.  His  calm  overarching  vault  is  above  all ;  he 
overshadows  and  includes  all.  No  one  can  say  when  he 
came  into  existence.  He  is  beyond  the  chances  and 
changes  of  human  life.  Thus,  the  first  glimmering 
sense  of  a  permanent  world-order  is  associated  with  a 
perceptible  object.  The  experience  of  a  permanent 
cosmic  series  embodies  itself  in  the  visible  image  of 
the  heavens.  But  the  unchanging  spirit  of  the  sky 
comes  a  little  closer  to  human  life  in  that  he  receives 
to  himself  the  spirits  of  the  dead.  The  souls  of  those 
whose  bodies  are  clothed  in  night  are  led  upward  to 
the  spirit  of  the  sky.  The  air  is  filled  with  such  souls ; 
they  are  conducted  to  his  beatific  repose.  Their  lives 
then  continue  unchanged  with  him.  Life  itself,  like 
the  serene,  outspread,  all -protecting  sky-spirit,  is  seen 
to  be  the  everlasting,  the  only  permanent  fact.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  destruction  of  life;  there  is  no 
creation  of  life;  there  is  no  expectation  of  death. 

This  African  system  of  beliefs,  like  the  Iroquoian, 
just  falls  short  of  development  into  a  clear  mystical 
system.  But  in  some  respects  the  African  is  a  little 
farther  away  than  the  American  Indian,  inasmuch  as 
the  symbol  of  the  one  eternal  idea  is  drawn  from  the 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  87 

outer  and  visible  world.  The  African  system  seeks  its 
god  in  deserts  of  space  and  time,  in  outer  immensi- 
ties, in  inferences  built  upon  direct  sensations.  It  cuts 
him  off  from  human  values.  It  prevents  the  stream  of 
consciousness  from  internalizing  itself  upon  a  single 
concept  of  unsurpassable  dignity. 

If  the  African  were  mentally  capable  of  regarding 
fixedly  the  conception  which  forms  itself  in  his  mind ; 
if  he  could  have  felt  it  less  sensuously  and  more  as  a 
concrete  expression  of  his  own  inner  life  unified  and 
harmonized  in  a  single  majestic  concept;  if  he  could 
have  lived  more  consistently  upon  its  level  and  re- 
frained from  sportive  and  repellent  fancies  with  re- 
gard to  it,  it  might  suggest  in  some  dim  way  the 
Indo-European  Sky-Father  and  the  Indo-European 
Fate,  it  might  have  led  him  close  to  the  brink  of  a 
superb  mystical  faith  such  as  we  find  in  India  or  among 
the  later  Greeks. 

The  Greeks  were  worshippers  of  another  sky-god. 
Their  great  Sky-Father  was  not  content  to  remain  in  a 
beatific  condition  of  perpetual  drowsiness,  which  is  the 
perfection  of  bliss  to  the  mind  of  the  indolent  negro. 
Zeus  was  an  active  god.  At  times,  however,  he  deliber- 
ated before  acting.  He  selected  not  only  a  fixed  end, 


88        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

but  also  a  connected  series  of  means  to  the  end.  But 
again,  Zeus  was  uncertain  how  to  choose ;  then  to  es- 
cape embarrassment,  he  weighed  in  his  hand  the  bal- 
anced scale.  To  us  this  scale  is  the  symbol  of  justice. 
To  the  old  Ionians  it  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  All  it 
meant  to  them  was  that  the  Sky-Father  in  perplexity 
was  attempting  to  avoid  deliberate  injustice.  On  his 
part  it  was  less  the  symbol  of  justice  than  the  sign  of 
blind  and  brutal  evasion  of  difficult  action.  The  scale 
signified  the  need  of  an  intervention  of  Fate,  the 
Spoken  Word.  From  without,  Fate  acted  upon  Zeus,  in 
like  manner  as  Zeus  from  without  acted  upon  men.  To 
the  older  thinkers  Fate  signified  the  resultant  action  of 
a  sum  total  of  forces  which  were  unknown  to  the  indi- 
vidual, not  a  mysterious  voice,  inaccessible,  lowering 
upon  the  world,  sending  forth  from  an  abyss  irrevoca- 
ble decrees.  This  may  be  the  conception  of  Aeschylus, 
but  it  was  not  the  old  Ionian  Fate.  Fate  connected 
itself  in  an  especial  form  with  the  Sky-Father,  who 
was  in  no  sense  infinite.  Zeus  had  a  beginning.  He 
was  not  in  all  places.  His  knowledge  was  limited.  His 
power  was  great,  but  the  gods  did  not  always  obey  him. 
He  had  no  control  over  death.  He  could  not  restrict 
the  action  of  an  oath  when  it  was  once  well  launched. 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  89 

An  oath  was  a  living  reality,  with  wings,  an  armed  di- 
vinity traversing  the  world,  ready  to  rush  upon  men 
who  forgot,  upon  men  of  bad  faith,  upon  the  gods. 

This  oath  was  the  essence  of  the  conception  of  Fate 
so  far  as  the  Sky-Father  was  concerned.  He  was  lim- 
ited most  of  all  by  his  own  orenda,a,s  the  Iroquois  would 
say.  Fate  was  the  unified  action  of  his  own  words  and 
of  all  that  passed  beyond  the  actual  personality  of  the 
god.  But  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  a  distinct  and 
isolated  force.  His  Fate,  the  necessity  which  con- 
strained, had  its  essence  within  himself.  His  Fate,  the 
necessity  which  endured,  was  the  after-effects  of  his  own 
thinking.  It  is  not  a  simple  aspect  of  the  nature  of  Zeus 
immanent  in  his  substance.  It  was  objectified,  yet  still 
not  a  personality  complete  in  itself  and  eager  to 
check  him.  It  permeated  all.  It  enfolded  and  directed 
all  human  and  divine  wills.  It  gave  wretchedness  or  joy ; 
it  supplied  steadiness  of  purpose;  it  enriched  the  sensu- 
ous life;  it  called  forth  decisions.  It  alone  was  always 
alert  in  the  world  in  each  event,  in  each  change  of 
form,  in  each  idea  and  action.  The  Ionian  Fate  is  an 
advance  from  the  Iroquoian  orenda  and  also  from  the 
west  African  sky-spirit.  But  to  the  Ionian  it  never 
seemed  quite  clear  whether  the  Sky-Father  and  Fate 


90        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

were  distinct  or  not.  So  long  as  beliefs  associated 
with  the  visible  sky  or  with  any  other  cosmological 
symbol  adhere  to  the  concept  of  Fate,  it  must  remain 
at  the  margin  of  consciousness;  it  cannot  easily  sat- 
isfy longings  aroused  within  a  man  by  experiences  of 
his  own  inner  life ;  it  does  not  arise  in  his  own  heart 
as  an  immediate  reality,  and  so  it  cannot  give  ex- 
pression to  a  classical  mysticism. 

In  India  the  development  of  mysticism  was  from 
the  beginning  uninterrupted,  more  recklessly  logical, 
less  repressed  by  social  restraint.  Here  social  life  was 
stagnant ;  the  individual  intellect  was  intensely  keen. 
Meditation  upon  the  meanings  of  language  has  al- 
ways been  one  of  the  most  important  occupations  of 
the  Indian  mind.  To  us  of  European  stock  it  seems 
that  any  one  spoken  word  stands  in  two  kinds  of 
relations :  one,  the  relation  of  the  sound  to  the  idea 
which  it  symbolizes ;  the  other,  the  relation  of  the 
sound  to  the  external  meanings  of  words.  To  us,  both 
of  these  relations  seem  artificial  and  conventional.  In- 
dividual variations,  changes  in  social  habits  and  physi- 
ological details  all  affect  the  relations  of  word  and 
idea  and  meaning  to  each  other. 

To  the  Indian  mind  the  relation  of  these  three  was 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  91 

much  less  loose.  The  word  spoken,  the  vibration  of 
air,  was  the  immediate  continuation  of  the  idea,  the 
auditory  sensation,  in  the  mind.  Immediately  the  idea 
becomes  a  movement ;  immediately  the  idea  becomes 
a  meaning  in  relation  with  other  words.  To  the  Hindu 
these  three,  sound,  idea  and  meaning,  together  form 
an  indissoluble  whole,  a  single  indivisible  reality.  Of 
these  three  aspects  the  most  conspicuous  seems  the 
most  important.  It  appears  to  be  the  source  of  the 
other  two.  The  spoken  word  gives  the  most  vivid  im- 
pression ;  it  plays  steadily  its  own  role  in  the  world ; 
it  strikes  the  ear;  it  holds  the  curiosity.  Hence,  it 
seems  to  have  value  to  give  to  the  other  two  aspects. 
To  us  it  appears  that  the  meaning  creates  the  lan- 
guage :  a  man  speaks,  we  should  say,  because  he 
thinks.  To  the  Hindu  it  seems  less  apparent  that  this 
is  always  the  fact.  Logically  and  temporally,  the  word 
seems  to  precede  its  idea  and  its  meaning  :  a  man 
thinks,  the  Hindu  would  say,  because  he  is  talking. 
The  benefactor  of  the  race  would  be,  not  a  Prome- 
theus who  brings  a  few  sparks  from  above,  but  he 
who  releases  among  men  the  most  finished  of  all 
forces,  an  irresistible  word. 
We  think  of  words  as  receiving  their  meaning  from 


92        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

us.  In  themselves  they  are  only  intricately  woven 
waves  of  air.  But  to  the  Indian,  words  exist  in  them- 
selves, and  have  their  values  in  themselves.  They  are 
alive.  Like  all  living  beings  they  have  preferences 
and  repulsions,  aptitudes  and  passions.  One  word 
associates  with  another,  and  avoids  a  third.  Each 
word  is  a  force :  it  forms  permanent  combinations, 
or  it  destroys  other  words.  Each  sentence  is  a  com- 
bination of  forces.  Every  phrase  exerts  a  positive 
material  action,  quite  as  perceptibly  as  air  or  as  a 
storm  of  wind.  Each  has  a  fixed  moral  character.  All 
of  these  energies  belong  to  the  word,  as  heat  to  the 
sun  or  as  danger  to  night.  Powerful  words  transform 
the  life  of  the  dead  or  create  life.  In  the  Rig-veda 
the  adoration  of  the  word  reaches  its  highest  point 
of  splendour.  Chants  are  directed  to  the  word.  The 
word  passes  on  to  new  triumphs ;  it  commands  the 
gods  ;  it  regulates  the  totality  of  life  ;  it  keeps  order 
in  the  three  worlds.  Even  more  it  accomplishes :  it 
not  only  governs,  but  is  the  source  of  order.  It  ends 
chaos,  it  begins  the  world. 

By  the  help  of  the  philologists,  we  can  trace  in 
India  the  growth  of  the  mystical  interpretation  of  life 
in  the  history  of  a  single  word.  In  the  oldest  mantras 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  93 

of  the  Veda,  the  word  brahman  has  the  very  simple 
meaning  of  a  charm  or  utterance  of  peculiar  potency. 
As  a  house  is  built  by  carpenters,  these  words,  as 
complete  external  wholes,  are  fashioned  by  the  seers. 
But  though  external  to  man,  and  complete  in  them- 
selves, they  have  yet  an  internal  meaning.  The  world 
rests  upon  a  brahman;  a  brahman  is  the  truth ;  all 
things  exist  in  it ;  the  seven  seers  subsist  upon  it. 
The  power  internal  in  the  structure  of  the  brahman 
is  at  the  heart  of  all  things. 

To  the  thinking  of  Eastern  peoples  this  inner  mean- 
ing, resident  in  the  sum  total  of  existence,  is  the  one 
idea  of  unsurpassable  dignity.  The  sole  reality  is  a 
single  all-embracing  meaning.  Within  the  Brahman 
every  individual,  everything  concrete,  is  as  if  it  were 
not.  To-day  at  this  day's  dawn,  as  the  sun's  golden 
arms  were  raised  aloft  before  his  coming  to  enliven 
the  world,  every  good  Hindu,  scholar  or  peasant,  has 
prayed : 

"That  longed-for  glory  of  the  heavenly  Savitar 

may  we  iviny 
And  may  himself  enlighten  our  prayers." 

This  longed-for  glory  is  the  great  Self,  the  all-em- 
bracing meaning  in  each  one  of  us. 


94        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

Thus,  the  Self  of  each  of  us  can  be  stated  in  cosmo- 
logical  terms  ;  and  again,  the  unknown  ground  of  all 
reality  is  identical,  within  the  limits  of  its  range, 
with  ourselves.  This  does  not  mean  that  man  is  equiv- 
alent to  Brahman.  It  does  not  mean  that  the  highest 
reality  we  know  must  include  the  best  in  ourselves, 
and  more,  within  itself.  It  means  that  this  Brahman 
is  the  eternal  unchanging  reality  within  each  of  us, 
itself  changeless  amid  all  change.  It  is  not  external 
to  any  of  us  ;  it  is  not  an  unknowable  something  ;  but 
it  is  the  only  reality  to  which  we  have  sure  access.  It 
is  wider  and  more  comprehensive  than  any  present 
grouping  or  collection  of  our  concepts  or  desires.  In 
respect  to  Brahman  we  are  absolutely  unchangeable; 
in  all  other  respects  we  are  a  ceaseless  series  of  trivial 
fluctuations. 

The  same  system  of  ideas,  with  some  variation  in 
expression,  is  set  forth  in  the  Yoga  philosophy  of 
Patanjali  and  in  Buddhism.  The  narrower  and  shal- 
lower part  of  us,  consisting  of  names  and  concepts 
and  superficial  conscious  motives,  is  likened  to  an  ex- 
panse of  water.  The  seven  changing  forms  of  con- 
sciousness, the  five  sensations,  the  feeling  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  the  feeling  of  self,  are  like  waves  on  the 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  95 

water;  water  and  waves  are  in  hopeless  disorder; 
each  fluctuation  is  caught  in  conflicting  rhythm. 
Each  body  lives  in  the  same  sense  as  each  wave  is  a 
portion  of  the  great  expanse  of  water.  As  the  wave 
is  set  in  motion  by  movements  of  the  atmosphere,  so 
the  fluctuations  of  our  minds  are  driven  onwards  by 
ignorance.  Each  human  life  is  a  portion  of  the  great 
over-soul.  While  the  body  lives,  the  over-soul  is  a 
person  in  bodily  form ;  when  the  body  is  dead,  that  per- 
son exists  no  longer.  Only  the  over-soul  remains,  of 
which  the  individual  was  a  part,  as  the  body  of 
water  remains  when  the  waves  cease  to  fluctuate.  The 
over-soul  is  that  unchanging  will  within  us  and  with- 
out us,  no  longer,  as  it  now  seems  to  us,  broken  into 
fragments  by  the  unceasing  interruptions  of  igno- 
rance. We  cannot  name  it ;  it  is  all  internal  mean- 
ing ;  while  every  name  is  external ;  every  name  is  an 
illusion.  It  is  called  unnamable  that  we  may  rid  it 
of  names.  It  is  that  of  which  our  little  minds  can  as- 
sert and  deny  nothing  except  that  it  is,  and  is  one, 
and  is  self-complete. 

Every  one,  then,  may  know  himself  directly  and 
give  his  own  self  some  kind  of  guidance.  Every  one 
may  find  his  own  self.  The  method  is  to  transcend 


96        PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

momentary  consciousness  by  an  effort  of  will.  All 
concepts  belong  to  that  which  changes;  there  must  be 
something  unchanging  in  dependence  upon  which  all 
concepts  exist.  All  representations  are  mixed  with  il- 
lusions. We  must  search  for  our  permanent  and  ori- 
ginal nature.  We  must  train  ourselves  to  repress  re- 
presentations of  objects.  There  are  different  ways  of 
training  the  mind.  One  way  is  to  sit  still,  closing  the 
eyes  and  keeping  the  mind  as  quiet  as  possible  until 
self-enlightenment  come.  The  other  way  is  the  same 
except  that  the  spiritual  teacher  gives  his  follower  a 
question.  Both  sit  together  thinking  of  the  question : 
"What  is  my  permanent  state  of  mind?"  or  "How 
do  I  comprehend  a  sound  or  a  flash  of  light?"  These 
questions  seem  to  have  no  meaning;  no  hint  for  any 
solution  is  given.  But  the  answer  lies  in  an  experience 
of  value.  The  answer  is  never  a  verbal  answer.  The 
answer  is  expressed  in  an  attitude  of  the  whole  body. 
We  become  like  a  lower  animal,  with  no  concepts  and 
with  no  speech.  The  answer  is  not  with  the  mouth,  but 
in  conduct,  in  action.  In  other  words,  speech  and  con- 
cepts are  always  false;  we  need  a  direct  experience. 
We  do  not  understand,  but  we  become  our  self.  As 
we  should  describe  this  state  in  the  speech  of  our  lab- 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  97 

oratories,  we  inhibit  all  particular  concepts ;  attention 
is  so  widely  distributed  that  all  special  ideas  are  kept 
subconscious,  yet  the  mind  is  kept  in  an  intense  ten- 
sion-feeling. In  this  state  the  mind  is  ready  to  re- 
spond to  any  suggested  stimulus  lofty  enough  in  qual- 
ity to  excite  it.  It  is  calm,  but  full  of  latent  power. 

This  state  of  mind  is  precisely  the  opposite  of  the 
mind  which  the  West  is  struggling  to  form.  The 
East  is  firmly  convinced  that  the  mind  not  directed 
to  objects  is  the  true  state  of  mind.  The  West  is  be- 
ginning to  believe  that  the  mind  is  a  series  of  more 
or  less  dissociated  sensations.  But  may  not  both  be 
true?  May  not  both  be  relative  points  of  view?  Are 
not  both  subject  and  object  artificial  classifications  of 
pure  experience?  Neither  can  exist  without  the  other. 
Sometimes  one  and  sometimes  the  other  attracts  more 
attention.  But  we  may  cultivate  either;  we  may  give 
our  lives  to  an  approach  to  one  or  to  the  other  extrem- 
ity of  experience.  We  may  try  to  make  ourselves  sure 
of  subjective  categorical  imperatives  and  of  logics  of 
mathematics  with  no  regard  to  particular  existing  ob- 
jects; or  we  may  lose  ourselves  altogether  in  the  con- 
templation of  objects  of  beauty ;  or  we  may  struggle  to 
transcend  both  subject  and  object  in  a  pure  experience. 


98         PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

It  is  not  true,  then,  that  mysticism  must  deny  the 
existence  of  objects,  the  existence  of  persons  or  of 
things.  But  it  does  deny  that  there  can  be  a  person- 
ality, in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word  and  on  the 
highest  levels  of  reality,  unless  there  be  one  inclusive 
system  of  values  or  one  will  which  is  complete  in  it- 
self, and  a  single  system  of  ideas  expressing  this  will 
or  value. 

If  any  person's  values  are  changeable,  if  desires  are 
constantly  sifting  through  each  other,  that  person 
cannot  accomplish  much  of  a  result  because  of  the 
weakness  of  his  motives.  Or  again,  if  his  system  of 
concepts  does  not  work  well,  the  range  of  thoughts 
narrows,  the  person  is  moved  all  the  time  by  one 
exclusive  set  of  impulses,  and  his  interests  become  in- 
fantile. But  as  the  desires  become  refined  and  more 
comprehensive,  the  personality  becomes  less  intermit- 
tent. The  man  is  now  no  longer  satisfied  with  help- 
ing one  set  of  desires  by  mutilating  others  which  he 
equally  values.  He  tries  to  give  satisfaction  to  all; 
and  he  adds  new  values  of  beauty,  of  ethics,  of  social 
life.  Still  even  these  higher  levels  of  personality  may 
waver;  the  passion  for  art  may  cease;  the  chivalrous 
instinct  may  come  too  late ;  unforeseen  self-centred 


MYSTICAL  IDEALS  99 

desires  may  flicker  up  within  him.  Then  it  is  that  the 
mystic  presses  on,  intent  upon  the  one  eternal  system 
of  beliefs  expressed  in  one  concept  which  shall  subor- 
dinate all  these  spasmodic  interests,  which  shall  in- 
clude all  values  within  itself,  and  which  shall  order 
all  in  such  wise  that  good  shall  not  clash  with  good. 
Whatever  the  path  be  to  the  mystic's  goal, — whether 
it  be  in  the  life  of  the  forest,  or  in  the  voice  of  sway- 
ing trees;  whether  it  be  Gautama's  Nirvana  stilling 
the  body  and  mind  in  an  ecstasy  of  keen  intelligence ; 
or  whether  it  be  the  path  of  Francis  of  Assisi,  wooing 
poverty  as  his  bride  and  serving  her  by  finding  the 
one  meaning  of  life  in  lowly  forms,  in  birds,  in  wolves 
and  lepers,  in  rich  men  and  in  thieves, — do  we  not 
feel  that  in  our  harsh  and  greedy  modern  life  we 
have  lost  something  which  these  tireless  wandering 
dreamers  found,  and  are  we  not  the  poorer  when  they 
take  to  their  path  again  and  leave  us,  with  our  ma- 
chinery and  our  possessions  and  our  piled-up  furni- 
ture, feeling  vulgar  and  needy  and  wondering  through 
what  ages  of  striving  we  must  pass  before  we  can  ap- 
proach their  simplicity? 

This  problem  still  remains  upon  our  hands :  how  we 
can  feel  sure  of  this  one  supreme  value    in  all  life, 


100       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

and  at  the  same  time  be  true  to  the  social  loyalties 
and  to  the  collective  beliefs  which  we  are  hourly 
striving  to  express  in  definite  deeds. 


» t »  » 


LECTURE  SIXTH 


1    ■>    ) 


VI 
LEVELS  OF  RELIGION 

/i  NY  attempt  to  estimate  in  what  respect  one  reli- 
Jl  jL  gion  is  complete,  and  another  not  complete, 
must  come  at  the  end  and  not  at  the  beginning  of  the 
discussion.  The  complete  religion  could  not  be  a  new 
religion:  there  is  no  such  religion.  Still  less  is  it  a 
philosopher's  religion  or  the  religion  of  any  band  of 
specialists.  Such  religions  are  traceable  in  the  past; 
but  soon  their  place  knows  them  no  more.  The  com- 
plete religion  must  be  far  more  comprehensive.  Every 
one  who  has  breathed  the  breath  of  life  and  felt  its 
mystery  and  desired  its  fulness  knows  in  his  own  ex- 
perience what  religion  is.  Neither  the  vagueness  of 
the  experience  nor  the  endless  variety  of  its  forms 
affects  the  fact  that  the  experience  is  direct  and  uni- 
versal. It  is  then  less  important  exactly  to  limit  the 
definition  of  complete  religion  than  to  make  sure 
that  no  characteristic  level  of  religious  experience  is 
omitted. 

In  a  complete  religion  we  should  distinguish  the 
characteristic  features  and  take  care  only  that  we  do 
not  exchange  theological,  or  philosophical,  or  any 

103 


.  1       <  '        ■'■.'' 

(I  «      f      »     '    .    f     ' 


104      PRACTICE  ANl)  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

other  ready-made  conceptual  substitutes  for  the  ac- 
tual expansion  of  religious  life.  The  completeness  would 
consist  in  a  constant  extension  of  life;  and  this  life 
must  be  effective  on  at  least  three  levels  of  experience. 

A  religion  of  any  vitality  at  all  must  include,  on 
its  first  level,  a  vivid  and  inner  feeling  of  personal 
values.  Beliefs  as  the  expressions  of  values,  and  ideas 
as  portrayals  of  beliefs,  must  not  be  substituted  for 
the  values  themselves.  There  need  be  no  clear  idea, 
unless  there  be  an  attempt  to  communicate  the  value. 
But  in  every  religion  there  must  be  the  characteris- 
tic personal  thrill  of  expectation,  of  wonder,  of  sur- 
prise, of  enthusiasm  which  is  what  is  called  religious 
emotion. 

The  second  level,  of  quite  a  different  quality,  con- 
sists of  collective  values  and  must  find  expression  in 
social  forms  of  life.  In  a  complete  religion  the  sense 
of  correspondence  between  the  two  levels  is  a  spon- 
taneous feeling  of  a  discovery  of  more  life  ;  each  level 
falls  into  its  new  place  and  each  strengthens  the  tex- 
ture of  the  other.  But  in  lower  religions  the  first 
level  of  unconscious  and  impulsive  life  is  easily  con- 
cealed under  the  conceptual  and  voluntary  life  of  the 
second  level  of  the  social  life.  In  such  religions  the 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  105 

superficial  social  layer,  trained  not  to  react  to  outer 
excitements,  floats  insecurely  upon  the  stagnant  un- 
conscious personal  life,  the  deeper  and  animal  level, 
still  fluctuating  with  primitive  conditions  of  life.  A 
primitive  religion  expresses  and  discovers  these  rudi- 
mentary impulses  and  buries  them  under  the  weight 
of  social  usages  and  of  verbal  substitutions.  But 
under  the  stress  of  conflicting  impulses  the  correspon- 
dence is  broken,  the  religion  is  rent,  the  upper  layer 
of  speech  and  custom  is  stripped  off,  and  the  animal 
man  stands  forth  again  alone. 

The  third  level  of  values  is  a  system  of  supersen- 
sible realities.  This  level  is  a  metaphysical  level ;  and 
the  metaphysics  is  very  often  mysticism.  This  level 
of  religion  moves  in  a  kind  of  being  which  is  not 
confined  to  groups  of  men  or  to  things  that  men  can 
touch  or  see  or  feel.  Knowledge  on  this  level  insists 
that  there  is  a  kind  of  being  which  does  not  exist  in 
its  totality  at  any  one  moment  of  time,  and  is  not  in 
its  totality  at  any  point  of  space  or  in  any  part  of 
Nature.  In  that  sense  it  does  not  exist ;  just  as  num- 
ber cannot  exist  as  a  magnitude  or  as  an  object  of 
perception.  The  objects  of  this  level  of  religion  can- 
not exist  as  objects  of  perception,  and  yet  they  are. 


106       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

Normative  judgements  are  of  this  kind  of  being  ;  and 
these  objects  which  cannot  be  perceived  correspond  to 
the  best  attainable  system  of  actual  human  purposes. 
This  system  of  normative  purposes  controls  the  in- 
hibitions and  impulses  of  life.  It  is  a  constant  back- 
ground for  every  dramatic  advance.  And  it  raises 
and  expands  the  whole  life.  No  universal  religion 
has  failed  to  insist  upon  such  a  system  of  super- 
sensible realities  and  to  teach  that  the  value  of  these 
realities  is  universal.  The  value  is  universal  in  the 
sense  that  some  such  system  is  obligatory  upon  every 
right-thinking  man,  and  in  the  sense  that  it  corre- 
sponds to  what  each  man  and  each  society  wishes 
most  consistently  for  itself.  Each  of  the  universal  re- 
ligions is  an  attempt  to  adjust  our  personal  life  to 
these  supersensible  realities,  to  perfect  constantly  the 
sense  of  direction  towards  them,  and  to  make  men 
feel  that  there  is  nothing  in  our  lives  that  is  out  of 
relation  to  them. 

The  three  levels,  personal  and  social  and  metaphysi- 
cal, correspond  in  a  numberless  variety  of  combina- 
tions. The  interest  lies  in  the  correspondence  of  the 
personal  life  and  of  the  social  life  with  the  higher 
universal  level.  It  is  in  the  peculiar  character  of  this 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  107 

correspondence  that  the  completeness  of  a  religion 
must  consist.  Religion,  in  the  full  sense,  is  the  life  on 
this  highest  level,  the  life  in  the  Normal  Conscious- 
ness, the  life  which  is  not  the  product  of  the  individual 
nor  of  the  race  nor  of  empirical  conditions. 

On  the  metaphysical  level  there  are  three  great  re- 
ligions :  ascetic  mysticism,  social  mysticism,  and  his- 
torical mysticism.  An  example  of  the  first  would  be 
the  Vedanta  system,  an  example  of  the  second  would 
be  Buddhism,  and  Christianity  would  be  the  third. 

The  first  of  these  types,  ascetic  mysticism,  is  not  a 
permanent  state  of  ecstasy;  it  is  a  development  cul- 
minating in  one  supreme  insight.  It  is  a  life  ordered 
in  a  single  direction  towards  one  idea.  Mysticism  dif- 
fers from  any  other  deliberate  pursuit  of  one  fixed 
aim  only  in  one  respect :  in  the  character  of  the  cul- 
mination at  which  it  aims.  The  different  stages  may 
coincide  with  levels  of  ordinary  life.  But  the  final 
stage  is  the  essential  feature:  this  is  ecstasy.  Ecstasy 
is  such  a  narrowing  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  that 
outer  objects  are  inhibited,  and  is  at  the  same  time 
a  concentration  of  the  stream  upon  one  idea  of  great 
dignity.  The  point  of  departure  is  an  aspiration  after 
a  supersensible  being  of  absolute  perfection.  The  per- 


108       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

feet  being  is  as  yet  unknown  and  unrepresentable  in 
knowledge.  But  the  search  for  it  besets  the  whole 
inner  life  until  the  concept  appears  as  the  concrete 
expression  of  fulfilled  aspiration  and  the  counterpart 
of  human  needs.  Life  is  interpreted  in  terms  of  perfec- 
tion. A  divine  ideal  draws  men  upward  to  itself.  The 
thought  of  God  logically  precedes  all  self-seeking  mo- 
tives. All  imperfect  ideas  merge  in  the  one  perfect  be- 
ing ;  all  partial  acts  of  will  surcharge  God  with  their 
own  authority. 

Thus  the  mystic's  world  is  inverted.  The  old  world 
loses  its  fascination ;  its  colour  pales;  admiration  for 
the  old  system  of  values  becomes  meaningless  and 
painful.  All  is  now  focal  upon  a  higher  level.  The  old 
ideal  is  faded  and  dead;  and  before  the  mind  rises 
the  perfect  being,  the  final  expression  of  all  the  ex- 
pectations and  strivings  of  past  life,  now,  at  last,  an 
ideal  living  within  the  inmost  self,  —  and  so  perfect 
that  no  perceptible  reality  can  express  what  it  con- 
tains. All  things  are  now  seen  to  be  fragments  of  one 
unlimited  whole.  One  word  implies  within  itself  all 
possible  meanings  ;  one  concept  is  the  sole  object  of 
desire ;  one  substance  owns  all  possible  properties. 
And  this  energized  within  the  mystic  when  as  yet  he 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  109 

knew  it  not.  In  the  words  of  the  great  Vedantist, 
"  This  is  his  real  form,  in  which  his  wishes  are  ful- 
filled, in  which  the  Self  only  is  his  wish,  in  which  no 
wish  is  left.  There  is  then  no  second,  no  other  differ- 
ent from  him  that  he  could  see." 

At  this  point  the  ascetic  mystic  diverges  sharply 
from  the  Buddhist  and  the  Christian.  The  one  Being 
alone  is  worthy.  Methodically  the  ascetic  begins  to 
strip  off  the  ties  which  bind  him  to  his  fellows,  bind 
him  to  objects  formerly  loved, — all  feelings  must  con- 
form to  the  One.  Consequently  internal  combat  against 
social  loyalties  is  encouraged.  The  tension-feeling  in- 
creases the  determination  to  cut  the  bond.  There 
must  be  abrupt  change;  there  must  be  no  transitory 
values;  there  must  be  changeless  being  in  perfect 
purity.  All  shall  be  of  the  quality  of  the  ecstasy,  of 
immediate  experience  with  no  associative  memories 
or  desires.  The  self  is  in  the  perfect  being  and  it  is  in 
the  self.  The  self  is  total  being  and  itself  at  the  same 
time.  The  feeling  of  contrast  of  personality  to  per- 
sonality is  lost.  There  must  be  no  social  level  what- 
soever. The  only  value  is  above;  the  only  progress  is 
from  above ;  the  perfect  must  create  in  us  the  search 
for  itself;  nothing  not  perfect  has  any  value.  The  only 


110       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

relation  in  life  is  self-identity;  the  only  aim  is  the  ef- 
fort to  be  perfect.  The  life  of  the  world  is  a  hin- 
drance. Henceforth  the  ascetic  devotes  himself  to  con- 
templation; henceforth  let  no  man  know  him;  hence- 
forth he  is  a  passenger  on  earth. 

This  mysticism  unifies  and  coordinates  all  values  in 
a  single  concrete  experience.  This  experience  is  as 
clear  to  this  mystic  as  is  the  taste  of  pineapple  or  as 
the  colour  of  the  hibiscus.  The  quality  is  different,  but 
the  experience  not  less  vivid;  on  the  contrary  he 
insists  it  is  more  specific.  All  mystics  know  that  the 
personal  life  inheres  in  an  infinite  system  of  supersen- 
sible reality.  The  ascetic  mystic  differs  from  others  in 
his  way  of  approach  to  this  metaphysical  being.  The 
rigid  mystic  of  this  type  is  convinced  that  the 
only  method  of  approach  is  to  abolish  this  world. 
Social  life  is  renounced;  family,  state  and  property, 
art  and  science  must  cease  utterly  to  prevail.  There 
can  be  no  middle  term  between  the  One  and  the  in- 
dividual soul.  Human  societies  and  human  loyalties 
are  illusory  and  must  be  suppressed.  All  is  repressed 
except  the  Great  Self. 

This  programme  cannot  easily  be  completed ;  the  ac- 
tual result  is  often  nothing  more  than  the  establish- 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  111 

ment  of  a  correspondence  between  the  old  primitive 
level  of  the  animal  instinct  of  self-preservation  and 
the  new  level  of  ecstatic  aspiration.  In  the  words  of 
Spinoza,  "The  passion  to  be  perfect  is  the  same  as 
the  tendency  to  persist  in  one's  own  form  of  being." 

The  social  type  of  mystic,  such  as  Gautama,  has  a 
similar  system  of  control  for  life :  he  also,  by  means  of 
a  symbolic  idea  of  perfect  experience,  attempts  to  feel 
that  experience.  For  him  also  there  is  no  external,  no 
transcendence;  all  is  internal,  all  is  continuous,  all  is 
limitless;  there  is  no  contrast  of  mind  or  body,  of 
subject  and  object,  nor  any  such  thing;  all  is  a  unique 
Presence  supertemporal  and  free  and  self-determined ; 
all  is  life;  all  is  self;  all  is  peace. 

The  ineffable  union  summing  up  in  one  all  known 
values  is  concretely  experienced.  When  the  mystic's 
self  merges,  on  the  higher  level,  in  the  one  perfect 
meaning,  the  sting  of  defeat  is  soothed  away  in  pas- 
sionate adoration.  His  life  yields  him  pleasure  of  hith- 
erto undreamed  purity.  His  exaltation  in  his  own 
self  with  beautiful  precision  unifies  his  life.  All  his 
aspirations  for  the  ideal  find  their  counterpart  in  his 
own  experience.  This  sense  of  correspondence  is  the 
source  of  his  delight.  The  inner  anarchy  is  now  trans- 


112      PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

formed  into  a  single  order.  The  one  idea,  absolute  in 
the  authority  of  its  beauty,  persists  in  consciousness 
without  perceptible  change,  and  so  directs  the  stream 
of  thoughts  that  emotional  tones  and  motor  tenden- 
cies fall  automatically  into  correspondence  with  it. 
This  exceptional  unification  of  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness diffuses  him  with  joy  and  focuses  his  will 
in  mighty  moral  efforts. 

This  mystic  of  this  joyous  and  social  type  finds  his 
highest  value  of  life  not  in  hatred  of  the  world  of 
change,  not  in  disgust  at  men  and  at  human  institu- 
tions and  at  social  aims,  but  in  an  almost  ecstatic  de- 
light in  contemplating  them  all.  After  their  ecstasies 
these  mystics  look  again  at  the  life  of  men,  the  ordi- 
nary life  in  the  fields  or  in  the  lanes  of  the  city,  and 
it  appears  to  them  transfigured.  To  the  pure  all 
things  are  pure.  The  poor  human  animal  is  evil  only 
when  gazed  upon  with  carnal  eye.  In  loving  the  de- 
spised and  the  rejected  this  mystic  finds  his  peace  and 
loves  his  God.  To  find  the  new  value  in  the  old  life 
is  to  him  a  test  of  courage,  a  trial  of  strength  and  skill, 
a  spiritual  athletics,  a  knightly  exercise.  Every  limb, 
every  impulse,  every  faculty,  shall  be  at  the  bidding 
of  the  one  supreme  value.  Thus  his  life  is  to  him  a 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  113 

kind  of  practice  for  the  higher  intensities  of  soul.  He 
chooses  to  taste  pain,  he  searches  for  pain;  he  makes 
the  world  a  part  of  himself,  and  himself  a  part  of  the 
one  life.  Other  men  are  not  felt  to  be  distinct  from 
himself.  And  in  hearing  all  living  hearts  beat  in  cor- 
respondence with  his  own  pulsating  feelings,  he  has 
his  reward :  a  sublime  sense  of  correspondence  with  the 
highest  level.  As  Gautama  would  put  it,  "By  ceasing 
to  hunt  for  pleasures  and  by  ceasing  to  fear  pain,  by 
the  cessation  of  the  conditions  for  both,  and  by  con- 
centration of  mind,  the  lesser  values  have  no  mean- 
ing,— thus  only,  and  on  an  immense  scale,  we  gain 
the  real,  the  unchanging,  the  peace." 

In  Buddhism,  then,  concentration  of  mind,  imply- 
ing a  withdrawal  from  the  world,  is  of  fundamental 
importance.  Accompanying  this  is  an  extraordinary 
interest  in  ordinary  social  life.  Both  mystical  and 
social  levels  seem  complete :  Buddhism  has  duties  and 
privileges  for  both  recluse  and  householder.  There  is 
no  thought  of  abolishing  social  loyalties ;  both  social 
loyalties  and  mystical  ideals  coexist  in  the  same  reli- 
gion. But  while  both  are  recognized,  the  ascetic  life 
is  looked  upon  not  only  as  the  highest,  but  as  abso- 
lutely essential  to  the  highest  result.  We  read  that 


114      PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

Nagasena  taught  the  king  Milinda,  who  questioned 
him  on  this  very  matter,  that  no  person  "can  enter 
the  path  that  leads  to  peace"  who  has  not  observed 
the  thirteen  ordinances,  that  is,  who  has  not  embraced 
the  monastic  life  in  the  present  birth  or  in  a  former 
birth.  Faithful  householders  could  be  born  into  hea- 
ven; Nirvana  was  reached  only  by  the  ascetic  life. 

This  ascetic  ideal  will  of  course  affect  the  whole 
conception  of  loyalty  and  of  duty.  If  the  ascetic  life 
is  regarded  as  the  normal  life,  and  if  the  values  of  life 
are  estimated  according  as  they  bring  a  man  nearer 
this  ideal  standard;  the  ordinary  level  has  a  morbid 
element  injected  into  it  which  must  affect  all  its  rami- 
fications. The  morality  of  Buddhism  is  of  a  very  high 
standard;  we  do  honour  to  its  sublimity  and  to  its 
beauty ;  but  it  is  not  easy  to  overlook  this  morbid 
element.  Effective  life  depends  upon  the  clearness  and 
accuracy  of  the  moral  will.  If  this  is  confused,  the 
whole  inner  world  of  values  will  suffer.  And  confusion 
results  as  truly  from  over-strictness  as  from  laxity.  If 
a  man  believes  that  what  is  in  itself  indifferent  is 
either  duty  or  crime,  the  poise  of  will  is  injured  as 
truly,  though  perhaps  not  so  decisively,  as  though 
what  in   itself  is  wrong  is  made  to  appear  right.  At 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  115 

least  the  balance  is  disturbed.  The  morbid  view  of 
life  which  underlies  the  Buddhist  mystical  ideal  in- 
troduces into  the  standards  of  life  the  results  which 
we  should  thus  expect.  This  effect  is  aggravated  by 
that  other  view  of  life  which  makes  a  deed  chiefly 
valuable  as  it  contributes  to  the  spiritual  advance- 
ment of  the  individual  doing  it.  Thus  we  have  in  the 
Buddhist  morality  often  a  certain  extravagant,  mor- 
bid, and  we  are  tempted  to  say,  maudlin  character 
which  we  cannot  help  noticing  even  while  we  admire 
the  extraordinary  elevation  of  the  standard.  This  ele- 
ment may  be  illustrated  by  a  description  of  one  of  the 
meditations  practised  by  the  Buddha:  "Then,  Ananda, 
the  Great  King  of  Glory  went  out  from  the  chamber 
of  the  Great  Complex  and  entered  the  Golden  Cham- 
ber and  sat  himself  down  on  the  golden  couch.  And 
he  let  his  mind  pervade  one  quarter  of  the  world 
with  thoughts  of  Love ;  and  so  the  second  quarter, 
and  so  the  third,  and  so  the  fourth.  And  thus  the  whole 
wide  world,  above,  below,  around,  and  everywhere, 
did  he  continue  to  pervade  with  heart  of  Love,  far- 
reaching,  grown  great,  and  beyond  measure,  free  from 
the  least  trace  of  anger  or  ill-will."  This  process  was 
repeated  with  thoughts  of  Pity,  then  with  thoughts 


116       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

of  Sympathy,  and  finally  with  thoughts  of  Equanim- 
ity. Later  this  exercise  became  one  of  the  practices 
required  of  Buddhist  monks.  When  the  monk  had 
arrived  at  a  convenient  spot  and  placed  himself  in 
a  proper  position,  he  was  to  exercise  this  wish,  "May 
all  the  superior  orders  of  beings  be  happy ;  may  all 
men,  whether  they  be  monks  or  laymen,  all  the  devas, 
all  who  are  suffering  the  pains  of  hell,  be  happy; 
may  they  be  free  from  sorrow,  disease,  and  evil  de- 
sire. 

From  the  Buddhist  point  of  view,  which  makes  the 
culture  of  the  inner  sense  of  being  and  the  freedom 
of  the  individual  from  all  outward  bonds  the  most 
decisive  aims,  this  meditation  has  its  place  and  its 
meaning.  But  to  Western  minds  it  seems  neither  a 
preparation  for  social  service  nor  anything  like  a 
prayer,  but  more  like  an  aimless  overflowing  towards 
space,  a  kind  of  ungrounded  happiness  and  good-fel- 
lowship with  the  universe ;  consequently  to  us  it  ap- 
pears somewhat  extravagant.  The  same  boundlessness 
we  discover  in  the  acts  of  charity  for  which  the  Buddha 
is  praised  :  in  former  states  of  existence  he  had  given 
away  everything.  To  us  this  ideal  of  conduct  seems 
aimless,  unbalanced  and  sentimental.  It  is  easy  to 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  117 

see  the  value  of  such  acts  as  elements  in  the  discipline 
of  one  who  is  trying  to  sever  all  the  ties  which  bind 
him  to  the  earth;  but  giving  to  one  who  asks  until 
he  is  loaded  with  gifts  that  he  needs  less  than  the 
giver  while  the  rights  of  others  are  ignored,  has 
small  social  value. 

While  we  consider  these  blemishes  in  the  otherwise 
almost  perfect  system  of  Buddhist  morality,  it  is  well 
not  to  forget  that  in  contrast  to  this  exaggerated 
self-discipline,  we  have  in  the  life  of  the  Buddha  him- 
self an  example  of  sublime  self-sacrifice.  Out  of  pure 
unselfishness,  out  of  the  devotion  of  love  and  pity,  he 
lavished  his  life  upon  the  world.  This  life  goes  far 
to  counteract  the  imperfect  social  morality.  And  in 
Japan  this  defect  is  supplemented  by  the  intense  social 
loyalties  of  the  Shinto  religion  to  the  state  and  to 
the  family  ideal ;  the  result  to-day  is  the  very  high- 
est quality  of  social  morality. 

The  third  type  of  religion  on  the  metaphysical  level 
is  the  Christian  religion.  If  we  consider  the  early 
Christian  religion  wherever  it  has  manifested  itself  in 
its  original  purity,  it  is  sharply  contrasted  with  the 
ideal  life  of  ascetic  mysticism  or  with  the  ideal  life  of 
Buddhism.  Christianity  asserts  the  value  of  the  per- 


118       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

sonal  life,  with  its  concrete  rights  and  its  obligations 
and  its  needs  as  the  chief  end  of  the  final  purpose  of 
the  world.  Human  lives  are  not  to  be  abolished ;  hu- 
man wills  are  not  to  be  absorbed  in  one  mass  of  abso- 
lutely identical  experience.  All  men  are  to  seek  life  to- 
gether; each  life  is  to  give  all  it  can  to  the  other 
lives ;  the  past  is  to  give  life  to  the  present,  the  pre- 
sent is  to  correct  the  errors  of  the  past ;  all  men  are 
to  will  one  common  purpose.  This  purpose,  constantly 
developing  and  endlessly  fulfilling  itself,  is  the  one 
supersensible  reality  running  through  all  human  lives : 
to  know  this  is  eternal  life.  No  one  fulfils  this  one 
will  which  unifies  all  lives ;  nor  do  all  working  together 
as  parts  of  one  collective  purpose  know  its  full  mean- 
ing ;  it  is  beyond  all  and  yet  in  all ;  and  each  one 
is  this  purpose,  so  far  as  he  can  will  it.  All  this  is 
an  entire  change  of  emphasis :  God  is  not  rigid, 
changeless,  infinite  rapture,  consisting  of  the  per- 
fect thought  of  self;  nor  is  He  the  last  and  the  most 
impersonal  abstraction  of  actual  experience.  But  God 
is  the  ultimate  energy  of  personal  will,  not  dependent 
on  any  one  human  will  nor  upon  any  social  will,  and 
yet  inseparable  from  any  human  will,  and  necessa- 
rily conditioning  every  will.  The  contemplative  ideal 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  119 

gives  place  to  that  of  action,  to  the  unflinching, 
practical  fulfilment,  by  persons  and  by  social  units, 
of  one  endless  purpose.  Men  are  not  to  reflect  what 
they  are,  but  to  will  to  become  what  they  are  capa- 
ble of  being.  The  end  of  life  is  the  realization  by 
each  man  of  his  own  capacities.  These  capacities  may 
be  regarded  as  elements  of  one  infinite  purpose; 
this  purpose  needs  our  lives  and  carries  them  to  one 
common  goal  which  is  altogether  beyond  our  efforts 
to  reach  or  even  to  conceive.  This  realization  can- 
not be  effected  by  a  variety  of  impulses,  nor  by  med- 
itation upon  abstract  ideals,  but  only  by  an  increas- 
ing sequence  and  ordering  of  purposes  toward  a 
common,  infinite  goal,  by  virtue  of  a  feeling  of  in- 
ternal obligation  of  will,  a  feeling  that  a  man  owes 
more  to  himself  than  any  one  impulse  can  give. 
Loyalties  toward  other  men  are  a  part  of  a  man's 
own  purpose  for  himself,  and  each  purpose,  so  far 
as  each  man  wills  it,  is  defined  by  its  place  in  the 
one  plan.  And  so  far  as  effort  to  live  out  the  one 
common  loyalty  in  deeds  is  tested  by  pain,  the  more 
clearly  the  quality  of  the  one  common  life  becomes 
purified  within  us  and  fixed  in  the  focus  of  our  vol- 
untary life. 


120       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

All  these  abstractions  were  portrayed  by  Christ  in 
descriptions  of  the  search  for  the  Kingdom  of  God 
and  His  righteousness.  The  quality  of  this  kingdom 
of  souls,  of  the  nature  of  God,  and  of  His  righteous- 
ness are  identical.  All  are  aspects  of  the  same  thing 
from  different  points  of  view.  The  kingdom  is  the 
social  level,  or  in  the  later  theological  language,  the 
Spirit.  Life  in  this  kingdom  is  the  gift  of  God,  is 
the  revelation  to  us  of  Ultimate  Being;  He  is  the 
Giver  of  all  good  things,  or  in  the  later  theological 
language,  the  Father.  The  righteousness  is  the  personal 
sense  of  correspondence  to  these  other  levels.  All  three 
express  one  purpose;  all  three  are  one  in  quality  and 
aim.  The  metaphysical  level  is  meaningless,  if  out 
of  correspondence  with  the  social.  The  social  level  has 
meaning  in  itself,  but  the  ideal  of  a  common  life, 
which  consists  of  human  beings,  those  who  choose  to 
will  the  higher  purposes  of  other  lives  as  the  final 
purpose  of  their  own  lives,  a  kingdom  founded  on 
ideal  human  love, — this  has  wider  and  more  perma- 
nent significance  than  the  mutual  relations  of  men  to 
each  other.  The  ability  to  will  such  an  ideal,  and  the 
ability  to  think  of  the  world  with  reference  to  such  an 
ideal,  becomes  the  critical  experience.  Science  and  art 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  121 

and  politics  and  economics  may  all  be  counted  as 
particular  expressions  of  one  infinite  purpose,  in  which 
each  life  of  the  past,  each  one  of  ourselves  and  of  the 
races  to  come,  has  his  definite  opportunity,  at  a  defi- 
nite point,  to  share.  The  sense  of  working  out  such  a 
mighty  purpose  in  one's  own  life  gives  a  man  the 
right  mettle  to  face  the  world;  in  contrast  to  this  the 
ascetic  ideal  seems  more  a  cry  of  defeat  from  men  of 
weaker  moral  fibre,  an  appeal  for  a  tenderer  humanity, 
an  entreaty  for  a  more  merciful  and  peaceful  world. 

One  of  the  unique  qualities  in  Christianity  is  that 
this  metaphysical  ideal  becomes  the  single  aim  of  the 
historical  life  of  Christ,  who  gave  his  whole  life  to  the 
training  of  a  band  of  men  who  should  communicate 
this  ideal  by  personal  contact  with  single  individ- 
uals to  the  race  of  men.  The  choice  of  that  task  as  a 
life-calling,  the  foundation  in  history  of  a  spiritual 
kingdom  based  upon  the  belief  that  we  count  most  to 
ourselves  when  we  choose  the  lives  of  others  as  ex- 
pressions of  our  own  life,  and  at  the  same  time  as  ex- 
pressions of  the  Ultimate  Will,  is  not  superseded  by 
other  ideals. 

The  peculiar  effectiveness  of  this  life  of  Christ  seems 
due  to  a  certain  elemental  simplicity  and  candour 


122       PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION 

which  makes  him  an  absolute  master  of  himself,  and 
makes  his  revelation  of  God  inseparable  from  his  own 
inner  life. 

Absolute  certainty  is  the  commonest  form  of  belief, 
especially  for  the  lower  grades  of  mentality  and  the 
lower  forms  of  religion.  As  soon  as  comparisons  and 
reformations  seem  inevitable,  the  original  absolute 
certitude  becomes  a  scientific  certitude;  reality  is 
thought  in  general  terms  of  serial  order  and  not  in 
isolated  terms  of  absolute  impression.  However  much 
legendary  material  and  theological  speculation  ob- 
scure from  us  the  character  of  Christ,  it  is  evident  that 
his  religious  insight  into  reality  was  unfaltering  in  its 
order  and  unobscured  in  its  range  of  aim.  His  life  was 
not  apartial  life,  wavering  with  the  ambitions  of  strug- 
gling men,  but  rather  life  in  the  absolute  conscious- 
ness; not  only  over-individual,  but  over-social  and 
over-empirical.  Certainty  of  this  consciousness  is  ab- 
solute :  never  the  certainty  of  momentary  excitement, 
and  not  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  our  ideals,  but  the 
firm  conviction  of  the  supremacy  of  the  final  purpose  of 
reality  in  us.  Every  act  seems  an  expression  of  this  pur- 
pose that  the  total  life  of  man  on  all  its  levels  shall  be 
brought  into  a  feeling  of  correspondence  with  the  ab- 


LEVELS  OF  RELIGION  123 

solute  will:  and  of  the  belief  that  the  absolute  will, 
in  its  breadth,  in  its  height  and  depths,  is  in  close 
correspondence  with  each  personal  life  and  is  a  con- 
stant standard  of  desire  for  all  lives,  and  that  there  is 
yet  no  end  to  the  variation  of  its  relations  to  single  per- 
sonal lives.  The  resulting  history,  so  far  as  we  can  trace, 
has  been  that  the  religion  of  Christ  has  absorbed  within 
itself  a  richer  deposit  from  all  other  beliefs  than  any 
other  religion ;  that  it  has  drawn  into  itself  number- 
less streams  of  personal  desire,  of  aesthetical  taste, 
of  social  inventions  and  of  mystical  systems, — all 
of  which  have  been  the  life  of  the  most  cultivated 
races.  The  appeal  has  been  not  to  authority  nor  to 
reason,  but  to  conscience,  aesthetic  or  social  or  mysti- 
cal. And  thus,  this  Man,  although  using  power  drawn 
neither  from  economics  nor  from  politics  nor  from 
church,  nor  from  science  or  art,  was  so  penetrated 
with  passionate  love  of  men  and  of  the  Father-God, 
and  so  true  to  each  man's  own  best  wishes  for  his  own 
good,  that  whenever  the  inner  motives  of  His  life  have 
been  understood,  the  enlightened  conscience  of  hu- 
manity has  accepted  Him  as  representative  of  the 
religious  conscience  of  the  race,  and  has  followed  His 
life  and  found  Life  in  Him. 


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